“A masterwork of embodied spirituality. Mizuki shows us that transcendence doesn’t mean escaping our human experience but fully inhabiting it. Her essays transform how we think about the relationship between body and soul.”
– David Chen
In a world racing toward artificial perfection, Kaori Mizuki reminds us that wisdom lives first in our messy, imperfect bodies. Through essays that move between her fish market stall in Kamakura, Japan, and her winter home in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Mizuki finds profound truth in unlikely places – fish guts and menstrual blood, aging joints and morning mucus, commuting on the bus, the particular angle of a dying fish’s eye.
With unflinching attention to physical reality and razor-sharp philosophical insight, these essays explore how spiritual truth flows not despite but through our complete human experience. From watching a praying mantis navigate market crowds to observing how elderly couples maintain intimacy, Mizuki reveals how our deepest wisdom often speaks through our most overlooked moments.
Part meditation on mortality, part celebration of embodied consciousness, her works invite readers to rediscover the sacred in the seemingly mundane. Through Mizuki’s eyes, even cleaning fish becomes an act of communion with life’s greatest mysteries.
“Mizuki writes with the precision of a surgeon and the soul of a poet. Her essays remind us that wisdom lives not in perfect moments but in embracing our complete human experience – mess, mortality, and all.”
“In an age obsessed with sanitizing human experience, Mizuki’s unflinching attention to physical reality feels like a revelation. These essays transform the mundane into the sacred without ever losing their grip on authentic human experience.”
– Dr. James Liu
“Reading Mizuki is like having a deeply wise friend who isn’t afraid to talk about the things most spiritual writers politely ignore. Her essays find profound truth in unlikely places, teaching us how to reconcile our physical and spiritual natures.”
– Maria Rodriguez
"People say, take life one day at a time. I dont have that affliction. I take life one moment at a time. Every moment is precious, rare. So rare -- it will happen only once in the existence of your ancient soul, and to make it worsely rare even, it will never ever, happen again. I cannot stand the thought of not being present when a moment is playing itself out. For me, the world stops in moments just so we can appreciate each one."
In a world racing toward artificial perfection, Kaori Mizuki reminds us that wisdom lives first in our messy, imperfect bodies. Through essays that move between her fish market stall in Kamakura, Japan, and her winter home in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Mizuki finds profound truth in unlikely places – fish guts and menstrual blood, aging joints and morning mucus, commuting on the bus, the particular angle of a dying fish’s eye.
With unflinching attention to physical reality and razor-sharp philosophical insight, these essays explore how spiritual truth flows not despite but through our complete human experience. From watching a praying mantis navigate market crowds to observing how elderly couples maintain intimacy, Mizuki reveals how our deepest wisdom often speaks through our most overlooked moments.
Part meditation on mortality, part celebration of embodied consciousness, her works invite readers to rediscover the sacred in the seemingly mundane. Through Mizuki’s eyes, even cleaning fish becomes an act of communion with life’s greatest mysteries.