title: This Vast Being: A Voyage Through Grief and Exaltation
author: Ann Kreilkamp
description: I remain astonished at how grief and joy can simultaneously occupy the same space. And that as grief widens and deepens, so does joy. And how the embrace of both triggers an even more intense aliveness.  This Vast Being, by Ann Kreilkamp This book invites us into the rich inner journey of a woman whose husband died of a heart attack and left her, bereft and alone, in a brand new town. Unlike many who suffer sudden, unimaginable loss, Kreilkamp, 64, did not fall into depression. She describes, in detail, her year of conscious grieving during which she formally attended to new widowhood as a precious and short-lived mine of information and inner expansion. Interweaving the many dimensionsvisible and invisible, literal and spiritualto which she was privy during the initial stages of her mourning process, she shares both poignant remembrances and the shocking transformations that moved her and moved through her like squalls. This Vast Being plunges the reader into the dynamics of a difficult marriage that gradually evolved into a union of equals and opened both their hearts. And it reveals the complex inner reality of Jeffrey Joel, a mostly submerged Renaissance Man who, post-death, presented unusual phenomena to demonstrate his existence in a realm that she sensed only a hair-breath from ours; who continued to impart his wisdom after he died and, to her surprise and delight, who invited her into a deeper intimacy than he could afford while embodied.Finally, This Vast Being invites the reader into certain interior spaces of which most of us are not normally aware, and to explore them. As we open to this vast being inside us, we access an expansive awareness that transforms what appears as irreplaceable loss into a magnificent cache of hidden significance. In so doing, this book creates a down-to-earth and unusually inclusive template for human healing.
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  Eternal Devastation
  
  
  ––––––––
  
  
  ANNALEE ADAMS
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ETERNAL DEVASTATION
  
  
  First edition. July 2018.
  
  
  Copyright © 2018 Annalee Adams.
  
  
  The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
  
  
  Written by Annalee Adams.
  
  
  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are
  entirely coincidental.
  
  
  All rights reserved.
  
  No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in a
  retrieval system in any form or by any other means, without prior written
  permission from the author, Annalee Adams. No part of this publication may be
  circulated in any form of binding or cover than that which it is published in.
  
  This book has been typeset in Garamond.
  
  
  [www.AnnaleeAdams.com](http://www.AnnaleeAdams.com)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Table of Contents
  
  
  [Title Page](part0000.html#0-fc4bb7c5eccc4c4ab007804e3d59d96e)
  
  
  [Copyright Page](part0001.html#UGI0-fc4bb7c5eccc4c4ab007804e3d59d96e)
  
  
  [DEDICATION](part0003_split_000.html#2RHM0-fc4bb7c5eccc4c4ab007804e3d5