Geography of Heaven

"Above me the maloca's conical palm dome was as dark as the night sky. A hint of cloudiness rose at the bottom of my vision. I tried to blink it away. But it wasn't a dryness in my eyes. A mist so nebulous that it almost wasn't there flowed over me, rising up the length of my body. I closed and opened my eyes to dislodge it yet it remained for - as it came to rest over me - I realised that it had a presence, a luminosity as if lit by starlight, as if alive. The mist gathered itself inches above me, covering me from feet to chest and head. Then most remarkable of all, it lowered itself onto me. I knew then it was her. That this was no visual fallacy. My heart was breaking, mending, overwhelmed with gratefulness, by wonder, in love." Four years ago Rory MacLean set out on a path with no idea of where it would lead, of how long it would take or that his life would change forever. When his wife Katrin died, he needed to know where she had gone. To find her, he embarked on a globe-circling journey to the places where the veil is thin, where our physical world touches the divine. He watched gods walk on fire, heard the voices of water, lay his hand on the stepping stone to another world. He sun danced with the Lakota. He survived a tornado. He felt the rising sun warm his skin in a Himalayan sanctuary and, on Jacob's Rock where angels once descended to earth on a ladder, he spent the night avoiding being shot. In Delhi, he was told "the universe will keep sending you loving souls to guide you on this journey" and it did, opening doors, revealing wonders beyond his imagination, until - in five truly extraordinary moments - Katrin was beside him. At the same time, in a subtle exploration of the manner of brain lateralisation, his journey through grief is explained by the latest neuroscientific research. The result is a life-enhancing travel book like no other, reaching for a place from which no one has ever returned. A book that could only have been written with Katrin by his side.