In Search of the Sun: One Woman's Quest to Find Family in Japan (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781727034875)

"This is a story about forging family across dividing oceans, cultures, and self-doubts, but ultimately, "In Search of 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

At 30, Californian Leza Lowitz is single and travelling the world, which suits her just fine. Coming of age in Berkeley, California, during the sexual and feminist revolutions of the 1960s, she learned that marriage and family could wait.

Or could they?

Then she moved to Japan and met the man of her dreams, and her heart opened in ways she never thought possible. And when she approached 40--the same age her own mother had left the family behind to "find herself" --Lowitz yearned for a child.

In a reverse trajectory of her own mother's life, Lowitz sought to heal the wounds that had kept motherhood at bay.

As Lowitz's healing took her from the San Francisco Bay Area to New York and Tokyo, with spiritual quests in India on the way, she came to a deeper understanding of what motherhood means.

She went from doing her yoga practice for herself to opening a yoga studio in Tokyo and fostering a community. Then, at 44, she sought to adopt a child in Japan, where bloodlines are paramount and family ties are almost feudal in their cultural importance.

She unearthed lessons from a Jewish childhood and married them to an adulthood spent with Zen and yoga in Japan.

Though raised in Berkeley, one of the most diverse and progressive places in the world, Lowitz settles in Japan, one of the most outwardly homogenous and socially staid." In Search of the Sun" is the story of what Lowitz learned from both worlds.

It's the story of how she conquered her fears, blasted through inner and outer limits, and became the mother she'd never thought she'd be. And when the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown hit Japan, the disasters reinforce what she'd come to know by then: that the only true home is the one we make within ourselves.

"We think we know where babies come from, but do we know how a mother is born? "In Search of 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"

"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, co-Founder, 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"

(This is a new, revised edition of the author's previously published memoir entitled "Here Comes the Sun.")