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Pulling Up Stakes: Stepping into Freedom
On a High Sierra packtrip with her husband and their six llamas, psychologist Harriet Wrye felt a millennial call to pull up stakes in her life, as she did with tent stakes and llama stakes each day as they moved along the trail. Inspired, she closed her Los Angeles psychoanalytic practice of thirty years , they leased their house at the beach, and set out on a journey to the back of beyond. Creating a sabbatical from the familiar, her journey became a life-changing spiritual pilgrimage that led to a deep practice of letting go of assumptions, habits and patterns, and stepping into freedom.
432 pages, Paperback
First published April 10, 2012
2 people are currently reading
52 people want to read
About the author
Harriet Wrye
1 book7 followersHarriet Kimble Wrye, Ph.D. is a Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst Emerita at the Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies. She has been ordained by Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh as a Member of the Order of Interbeing. Dr. Wrye, co-author of The Narration of Desire and more than 25 articles, lives with her husband, Jim Wheeler, their five llamas, two horses and two dogs in Santa Cruz, California, where she practices mindfulness and psychotherapy.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 22, 2014
PULLING UP STAKES: Stepping Into Freedom is a brilliant tour de force of Harriet Kimble Wrye's global travels, imbued with uncommon insight--at once personal and professional, springing from her psychoanalytic training and her spiritual insight as a Buddhist practitioner. It's an account of adventure on many levels--physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual, written with deep intelligence yet accessible to any discerning reader. Wrye writes intimately of people and landscapes with stunning images that touch the heart.
May 29, 2012
Well, as the person who lived these 15 years of journeys inward and to the "back of beyond" and lived to write about them, I am too immersed to be unbiased, but I am very proud to share what other writers have written about Pulling Up Stakes:
Full of compassion and wise vision, psychologist Harriet Wrye's compelling adventures and spiritual pilgrimage in PULLING UP STAKES offer a map of how cultivating mindfulness can help us all to truly "Step Into Freedom" no matter who we are or what obstacles we face.
Thich Nhat Hanh: Zen Master, Poet, Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and author of Peace is Every Step and The Miracle of Mindfulness
~~~~~~~~~
Reading Pulling Up Stakes, I was heartily inspired! Savvy psychologist and ordained Buddhist mindfulness practitioner, Harriet Wrye turns her psychoanalytic lens on herself, her relationships and sculpting a life with purpose and passion. Packing into the wilderness with llamas, leaving her home in the hands of nightmarish house-sitters while travelling through five continents from the depths of the Red Sea, to vanishing tribes in the Amazon rainforest, through New Guinea and Borneo to the high Himalayan plateau while, by the way, navigating breast cancer and a few other challenges. Harriet Kimble Wrye tells true stories of her own extreme sports path to enlightenment. She confronts basic human suffering, ill health and the loss of dear ones, each obstacle an opportunity for personal growth. Her every journey is a spiritual pilgrimage, a fascinating Bildungsroman, a story about “Coming of a Certain Age.”
Maxine Hong Kingston, Poet and Author: The Woman Warrior; Tripmaster Monkey; I Love a Broad Margin to My Life
~~~~~
An extraordinary adventure and spiritual odyssey that is both a captivating read and mind-expanding experience. Wrye writes in the tradition of Peter Matthiessen, Jon Krakauer, Phil Cousineau and Paul Theroux, though with a candid, deeply introspective slant indicative of her remarkable pilgrimage. Combining psychoanalytic acumen with Buddhist wisdom, the author escorts her readers on a journey through both the depths and ecstatic heights of human experience - just as a door seems to close in one of many dark nights of the soul, a window of compassionate and profound insight is pried open. In a book difficult to put down, Wrye has bestowed an exhilarating and enduring narrative of searching, discovery, and redemption.
Michael J. Diamond, Author, My Father Before Me and Becoming A Father; Co-Editor, The Second Century of Psychoanalysis.
~~~~~~~~
If I could have ONLY ONE BOOK, I WOULD WANT THIS ONE! Written in rich and beautiful language, it takes us on a journey visiting a dazzling variety of places, people and cultures, often not easy to get to or be with. It also takes us through an internal journey from trauma to letting go. There are many stories in this wonderful book. There is the story about the body being a messenger of the unconscious, a source of challenge and triumph. There is the story about connection and solitude, about dependency and independence, about competence and resourcefulness. There is a story about personal relationships told with courage and generous openness. There is a story about animals—love, loss and sadness. There are many stories about mountains and oceans and dangers and triumphs. There is a story about being a psychoanalyst and becoming a Buddhist. There is a story about illness and overcoming the fear of death. There is the story about the end of the journey and stepping into freedom.
THIS IS TRULY A “CAN’T PUT IT DOWN BOOK”, LEAVING YOU AWED, INSPIRED, AND GRATEFUL!
HEDDA BOLGAR, Ph.D., ABPP, FIPA—Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst at LAISPS, Founder of Wright Institute Los Angeles, and still actively teaching, analyzing and travelling at 102!
~~~~~~~~
Grab a cup of tea and prepare to be pulled into a journey that combines cliff hanging excitement as well as the experience of calm water. Our dear friend and dharma sister, Harriet is a kind, generous and wise woman with an unfailing characteristic of being a risk taker and adventurer. What makes Harriet unique is that she is both an explorer of the deserts, mountains and rivers as well as the inner terrain of intimate relationships, the psyche and soul. She is equally comfortable in a hut in the Sahara, an international Jungian panel at a psychological conference or seated serenely in a Buddhist zendo.
Harriet Kimble Wrye is a soul sister of amazement. She invites us into her explorations into all of these worlds, even into her own marriage and family, sharing struggles, triumphs, vivid detail and wise teachings. She invites us to inhabit each day as the miracle that it is. Her ability to be curious, amazed, alive and compassionate is an inspiration. She doesn't hold herself back. Her trust in a friendly universe and her vow to live each moment whole heartedly reminds us to treasure our every breath and foot step on this marvel that we call earth.
Peggy Rowe and Larry Ward, Authors of Love's Garden: A Guide to Mindful Relationships
~~~~~
This is an authentic and deep journey that links external adventure with inner awakening, written by one of the foremost psychoanalysts of her time. Harriet Kimble Wrye moves from the consulting room to living with primitive tribes, from healing others to being a cancer patient who needs healing, and from chafing at constraints to letting go into freedom.
Sara Davidson, Author of Loose Change, Real Property, Cowboy and Joan
Headhunters, near-death by scuba, bicycle, llama-induced plunges toward cliff-edges, long dark falls into Bhutanese toilets—from Los Angeles to Jerusalem, Patagonia to Bali to Borneo to Kilimanjaro—and all of it psychoanalyzed as she goes, a thrilling story of adventure, tenacity and spirit.. Woven through this great read, are the relational challenges, feisty and healing dialogues, and the loving support of her husband and travel buddy, Jim Wheeler.
Sam Shem, M.D. Author of The House Of God and The Spirit Of The Place;
Co-author, We Have To Talk: Healing Dialogues Between Men And Women
~~~~~~~
Pulling Up Stakes: Stepping Into Freedom explores the outer terrain of Wrye's travels with her husband in Africa, West Papua, Asia, South America, and the Sierra High Country and delves into the inner terrain of her psyche, their marriage, and her spiritual yearnings. Any reader who has a long-held dream to become a citizen of the world will be inspired by Wrye's determination and courage to make her own dreams come true. A fascinating read.
Maureen Murdock, Author of The Heroine's Journey, and Spinning Inward
~~~~~~~
Harriet Wrye’s psychoanalytic writings have addressed the terrors and pleasures of the body, the long-range impact of the earliest maternal surround on fantasy, fears, and desires, and basic questions of psychic aliveness and deadness. She has noticed the risks and challenges of living a full life -- of, as she once put it, “composing a life with ambition and desire.” In this personal narrative, ambition, desire, self-knowledge, and the vulnerabilities of mortality meet, as Wrye describes adventures and experiences throughout the world from quiet meditation to daring mountain ascents, along with the legacies of family traumas and repeated, life-threatening challenges to her health. Here, the psychoanalyst meets the autobiographer, as life, death, and primary relations are at stake.
Nancy J Chodorow, Ph.D., Psychoanalyst and Author: The Reproduction of Mothering; Individualizing Gender and Sexuality
~~~~~~~
Harriet Wrye offers the story of her pilgrimage, her inner/outer journey in an authentic and fluid style that will speak to so many who are concerned with the transformation of their lives and relationships. As a trained psychotherapist, she has been keenly able to turn the lamp upon herself to help her own healing, even when reflecting on and easing the suffering of others.
Shantum Seth, Dharmacharya and Guide: In the Footsteps of the Buddha ~ www.buddhapath.com
Full of compassion and wise vision, psychologist Harriet Wrye's compelling adventures and spiritual pilgrimage in PULLING UP STAKES offer a map of how cultivating mindfulness can help us all to truly "Step Into Freedom" no matter who we are or what obstacles we face.
Thich Nhat Hanh: Zen Master, Poet, Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and author of Peace is Every Step and The Miracle of Mindfulness
~~~~~~~~~
Reading Pulling Up Stakes, I was heartily inspired! Savvy psychologist and ordained Buddhist mindfulness practitioner, Harriet Wrye turns her psychoanalytic lens on herself, her relationships and sculpting a life with purpose and passion. Packing into the wilderness with llamas, leaving her home in the hands of nightmarish house-sitters while travelling through five continents from the depths of the Red Sea, to vanishing tribes in the Amazon rainforest, through New Guinea and Borneo to the high Himalayan plateau while, by the way, navigating breast cancer and a few other challenges. Harriet Kimble Wrye tells true stories of her own extreme sports path to enlightenment. She confronts basic human suffering, ill health and the loss of dear ones, each obstacle an opportunity for personal growth. Her every journey is a spiritual pilgrimage, a fascinating Bildungsroman, a story about “Coming of a Certain Age.”
Maxine Hong Kingston, Poet and Author: The Woman Warrior; Tripmaster Monkey; I Love a Broad Margin to My Life
~~~~~
An extraordinary adventure and spiritual odyssey that is both a captivating read and mind-expanding experience. Wrye writes in the tradition of Peter Matthiessen, Jon Krakauer, Phil Cousineau and Paul Theroux, though with a candid, deeply introspective slant indicative of her remarkable pilgrimage. Combining psychoanalytic acumen with Buddhist wisdom, the author escorts her readers on a journey through both the depths and ecstatic heights of human experience - just as a door seems to close in one of many dark nights of the soul, a window of compassionate and profound insight is pried open. In a book difficult to put down, Wrye has bestowed an exhilarating and enduring narrative of searching, discovery, and redemption.
Michael J. Diamond, Author, My Father Before Me and Becoming A Father; Co-Editor, The Second Century of Psychoanalysis.
~~~~~~~~
If I could have ONLY ONE BOOK, I WOULD WANT THIS ONE! Written in rich and beautiful language, it takes us on a journey visiting a dazzling variety of places, people and cultures, often not easy to get to or be with. It also takes us through an internal journey from trauma to letting go. There are many stories in this wonderful book. There is the story about the body being a messenger of the unconscious, a source of challenge and triumph. There is the story about connection and solitude, about dependency and independence, about competence and resourcefulness. There is a story about personal relationships told with courage and generous openness. There is a story about animals—love, loss and sadness. There are many stories about mountains and oceans and dangers and triumphs. There is a story about being a psychoanalyst and becoming a Buddhist. There is a story about illness and overcoming the fear of death. There is the story about the end of the journey and stepping into freedom.
THIS IS TRULY A “CAN’T PUT IT DOWN BOOK”, LEAVING YOU AWED, INSPIRED, AND GRATEFUL!
HEDDA BOLGAR, Ph.D., ABPP, FIPA—Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst at LAISPS, Founder of Wright Institute Los Angeles, and still actively teaching, analyzing and travelling at 102!
~~~~~~~~
Grab a cup of tea and prepare to be pulled into a journey that combines cliff hanging excitement as well as the experience of calm water. Our dear friend and dharma sister, Harriet is a kind, generous and wise woman with an unfailing characteristic of being a risk taker and adventurer. What makes Harriet unique is that she is both an explorer of the deserts, mountains and rivers as well as the inner terrain of intimate relationships, the psyche and soul. She is equally comfortable in a hut in the Sahara, an international Jungian panel at a psychological conference or seated serenely in a Buddhist zendo.
Harriet Kimble Wrye is a soul sister of amazement. She invites us into her explorations into all of these worlds, even into her own marriage and family, sharing struggles, triumphs, vivid detail and wise teachings. She invites us to inhabit each day as the miracle that it is. Her ability to be curious, amazed, alive and compassionate is an inspiration. She doesn't hold herself back. Her trust in a friendly universe and her vow to live each moment whole heartedly reminds us to treasure our every breath and foot step on this marvel that we call earth.
Peggy Rowe and Larry Ward, Authors of Love's Garden: A Guide to Mindful Relationships
~~~~~
This is an authentic and deep journey that links external adventure with inner awakening, written by one of the foremost psychoanalysts of her time. Harriet Kimble Wrye moves from the consulting room to living with primitive tribes, from healing others to being a cancer patient who needs healing, and from chafing at constraints to letting go into freedom.
Sara Davidson, Author of Loose Change, Real Property, Cowboy and Joan
Headhunters, near-death by scuba, bicycle, llama-induced plunges toward cliff-edges, long dark falls into Bhutanese toilets—from Los Angeles to Jerusalem, Patagonia to Bali to Borneo to Kilimanjaro—and all of it psychoanalyzed as she goes, a thrilling story of adventure, tenacity and spirit.. Woven through this great read, are the relational challenges, feisty and healing dialogues, and the loving support of her husband and travel buddy, Jim Wheeler.
Sam Shem, M.D. Author of The House Of God and The Spirit Of The Place;
Co-author, We Have To Talk: Healing Dialogues Between Men And Women
~~~~~~~
Pulling Up Stakes: Stepping Into Freedom explores the outer terrain of Wrye's travels with her husband in Africa, West Papua, Asia, South America, and the Sierra High Country and delves into the inner terrain of her psyche, their marriage, and her spiritual yearnings. Any reader who has a long-held dream to become a citizen of the world will be inspired by Wrye's determination and courage to make her own dreams come true. A fascinating read.
Maureen Murdock, Author of The Heroine's Journey, and Spinning Inward
~~~~~~~
Harriet Wrye’s psychoanalytic writings have addressed the terrors and pleasures of the body, the long-range impact of the earliest maternal surround on fantasy, fears, and desires, and basic questions of psychic aliveness and deadness. She has noticed the risks and challenges of living a full life -- of, as she once put it, “composing a life with ambition and desire.” In this personal narrative, ambition, desire, self-knowledge, and the vulnerabilities of mortality meet, as Wrye describes adventures and experiences throughout the world from quiet meditation to daring mountain ascents, along with the legacies of family traumas and repeated, life-threatening challenges to her health. Here, the psychoanalyst meets the autobiographer, as life, death, and primary relations are at stake.
Nancy J Chodorow, Ph.D., Psychoanalyst and Author: The Reproduction of Mothering; Individualizing Gender and Sexuality
~~~~~~~
Harriet Wrye offers the story of her pilgrimage, her inner/outer journey in an authentic and fluid style that will speak to so many who are concerned with the transformation of their lives and relationships. As a trained psychotherapist, she has been keenly able to turn the lamp upon herself to help her own healing, even when reflecting on and easing the suffering of others.
Shantum Seth, Dharmacharya and Guide: In the Footsteps of the Buddha ~ www.buddhapath.com
July 15, 2013
I won this book through the GoodReads first-reads program.
At first I wasn't terribly invested in this book, but the longer it went on the more interested I became. This book is an inspiring look at how age can't be seen as too great a deterrent to following your dreams and achieving what you want. At the age of sixty Harriet Wrye traveled around the world - even to Petra and Indonesia! - climbed mountains, became ordained as a Buddhist monk, and did even more incredible things. How cool is that?
This book may be a bit too woo for some people, as she does go rather in depth into the importance of spirituality in her life, but the adventure itself is quite incredible. Also, I do have to say that I've begun thinking of AFGOs in my own life...
Thank you so much for that one, Harriet Wrye.
One other comment: I think that the author did a wonderful job of explaining just how attached we can get to the animals in our life, unusual as they may be.
At first I wasn't terribly invested in this book, but the longer it went on the more interested I became. This book is an inspiring look at how age can't be seen as too great a deterrent to following your dreams and achieving what you want. At the age of sixty Harriet Wrye traveled around the world - even to Petra and Indonesia! - climbed mountains, became ordained as a Buddhist monk, and did even more incredible things. How cool is that?
This book may be a bit too woo for some people, as she does go rather in depth into the importance of spirituality in her life, but the adventure itself is quite incredible. Also, I do have to say that I've begun thinking of AFGOs in my own life...
Thank you so much for that one, Harriet Wrye.
One other comment: I think that the author did a wonderful job of explaining just how attached we can get to the animals in our life, unusual as they may be.
May 25, 2012
I've just finished reading this marvelous book which has brought me immeasurable pleasure and interest. I've been blown away by Harriet’s honesty, openness, integrity, soul searching, adventurism, courage and perseverance ... to name a few of her many great qualities that became apparent through her extraordinary challenges and travels, physical, emotional and spiritual. It was as though she was speaking to me, and I found her writing so richly descriptive and fulfilling, it felt as though I was experiencing everything she was going through. What an amazing journey!
The ten years of time, effort, dedication and patience she spent writing it will be well worth it as many thousands of readers, like me, will be inspired, motivated and encouraged by her experiences.
Thank you for the gift of greater understanding in many aspects of life your wonderful book has given me. My eyes have been opened to mindfulness and it's become my new buzz word of interest and practice!
The ten years of time, effort, dedication and patience she spent writing it will be well worth it as many thousands of readers, like me, will be inspired, motivated and encouraged by her experiences.
Thank you for the gift of greater understanding in many aspects of life your wonderful book has given me. My eyes have been opened to mindfulness and it's become my new buzz word of interest and practice!
August 6, 2012
I liked this book. It has some really good insights and Ms. Wrye is a great example of staying healthy and fit as you grow older. She and her husband are also good examples of keeping your marriage healthy and staying close. There were a few parts that I thought were too personal and should have been kept in a personal diary, and I did think it was a bit too long, but overall I liked it. You may read my full review on my book blog: www.the-readathon.blogspot.com.
March 28, 2012
I had the serendipitous pleasure of designing the website for this book. (www.pullingupstakesbook.com)
I normally would not have picked up a book of this type if not for my work, and I'm really glad I did.
Harriet's form meets function writing style is refreshing. And my walk away was unexpected,she has a real way of keeping you thinking.
I normally would not have picked up a book of this type if not for my work, and I'm really glad I did.
Harriet's form meets function writing style is refreshing. And my walk away was unexpected,she has a real way of keeping you thinking.
September 19, 2012
What a fasinating story this is, Harriet is a very brave & adventureous woman to do this special pilgramage with her husband.This is a novel of that special journey which is very physical & also spiritual,& very inspirational to women of her age.To also suffer cancer as well is so inspiring. A book to read several times. I won this on first-reads which was a bonus.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews