Taking readers on existential journey

Megan Griswold is passionate about helping others find their own path, having learned from her own. She has logged over 15,000 hours journeying through remedies from the simple to the wild-from the glaciers of Patagonia and the psycho-tropics of Brazil, to academia, the Ivy League, and the study of Eastern medicine.

In "The Book of Help: A Memoir in Remedies," Griswold reports from the fringe, the alternative, from the backcountry to the front, in stories that trace her lifelong attempt to become a more loving, more awake, more durable person in an increasingly complex world.

Griswold will visit Paulina Springs Books in Sisters for a reading and book signing event on Thursday, February 21, 6:30 p.m. She has roots in the area; her family maintains a Sisters Country home.

Megan Griswold was born into a family who enthusiastically embraced the offerings of New Age California culture - at 7 she asked Santa for her first mantra, and by 12 she was taking weekend workshops on personal growth.

But later, when her newly-wedded husband called in the middle of the night to say he's landed in jail, Megan had to accept that her many certificates, degrees and licenses had not been the finish line she'd once imagined them to be, but instead the preliminary training for what would prove to be the wildest, most growth-insisting journey of her life.

Often hilarious and, at times, heartbreaking, The Book of Help is an expedition through existential curiosity. Megan's adventures offer a beacon for readers' own paths as they, too, grapple with what it means to be a loving human in the world. By leading readers through layers of spiritual and holistic experiments and lesser-understood methods of wellness, they feel equipped to embark on their own journey.

With degrees from Barnard, Yale and the Institute of Taoist Education and Acupuncture, Griswold has trained and received certifications as a doula, shiatsu practitioner, yoga instructor, personal trainer, and in wilderness medicine, among others. She has worked as a mountain instructor, a Classical Five Element acupuncturist, a freelance reporter, an NPR "All Things Considered" commentator, a spokesperson for egg freezing, an off-the grid interior designer, and the creator of the backcountry-meets-high-style online store Little Moving Spaces. She resides (mostly) in a yurt in Kelly, Wyoming.