Portals of Transcendence: A Memoir of Spiritual Awakening (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781950495894)

Sue Scarborough's coming of age story--centered in the Green Swamp of Central Florida--in the 1960s echoes a real-life version of Where the Crawdads Sing. The area was rugged, dangerous, and isolating. The swamp was a lawless untamed frontier, with shootouts, robberies, abuse, wild animals, and wildfires. Drowning in guilt, shame, and fear of her gun-toting father's explosive brutality, Scarborough also feared the unwritten rules of society and the judgement that came her way due to her intuitive introversion. As the youngest child in her dysfunctional family, she was largely left to fend for herself after her older siblings moved away. As a teen and young adult, she rarely lifted her head to make eye contact with others and became mute for a time during her freshman year in high school.

Scarborough carried her childhood trauma into adulthood. For a while, religion created a diversion in Scarborough's lifelong search for God and meaning. Then a world beyond our earthly existence is revealed when a Near Death Experience (NDE) catapults her into a divine realm of love and acceptance and opens her to a path of spiritual discoveries. Her journey includes a vision in a dream, a family tragedy, the unexpected way a miracle list was fulfilled, and the stories of spiritual teachers who became a part of her life, including a psychic, a medium, and a pranic healer. Her sto-ries reveal dimensions that are joyful, healing, and put life's pieces together like completing a puzzle.

Scarborough begins to see her human condition with new understanding. Seeking answers to her life's challenges, she experiences spiritual awakenings, receiving messages of love through light energy, guides, and the spirits that surround and sometimes save her. Within this framework is an epic story of love for her partner, Tim, whom she cares for after a debilitating stroke and who joins her in her spiritual journey. Written with honesty and insight, Scarborough's luminous memoir is a meditation on what it means to be both human and divine as she explains:

"Everything happened for me, not to me. I was no longer a victim of my circumstances. Both my consciousness and personal reality were shifting. Suffering has the potential to up level us and can be a catalyst for profound transformation. Every step on my life's path had a purpose. Often, the darkest and deepest challenges are experienced by those who can rise to the highest timelines. To the extent that you have known pain, you can know joy at the same contrasting level."