Seeing Red

Lone Morch (Goodreads Author)

4.54 · Rating details · 13 ratings · 6 reviews

Seeing Red is one woman’s search for personal power, a journey of climbing inner and outer mountains that takes her to the holy Mt. Kailas in Tibet, through a seven-year marriage, and into the arms of the fierce goddess Kali, where she discovers her powerful feminine self. As much a memoir about coming into one’s own as it is a love affair with the Himalayas, Seeing Red ta ...more

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ebook, 213 pages

Published November 5th 2012 by Smashwords Edition (first published October 29th 2012)

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Nov 07, 2012 Lone Morch added it · review of another edition

Ha! Am I allowed to rate my own book? Well, why not?

I've read this book to eternity and back, several times over, so I think I'll let it be for now, but I'd love to hear what you think of it. ...more

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Dec 10, 2012 Grant Benson rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Seeing Red is a wonderful, revealing, and exciting true story. Lone's adventurous tale touches the archetypal and reflects our common pilgrimage through the passage of our lives: our hopes, relationships, aspirations, doubts, fears, mistakes, and insights. Her intensely open, honest, and intimate story illuminates her global quest like a brilliant light shining through the prism of her personal experiences. An exploration of sensitive, universal themes, this book awakened me to possibilities, re ...more

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Mar 07, 2013 Beth Duplaga rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Great memoir that really resonated with me.

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Nov 11, 2012 Nat rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A great true story. Actually broadened my perspective on all things from earthly to spiritual.

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Mar 17, 2015 Story Circle Book Reviews rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed

Lone Mørch, a native of Denmark, took a job with CARE Nepal and fell in love with the people and the country. There, she was introduced to mountains as saintly abodes and to the notion of the sacred. She became focused on Kalais in Western Tibet. Kalais is held to be the center of the universe and believed to hold the white light of human consciousness. To complete the Kora, a ritual circumambulation of the mountain, is said to erase the sins of a lifetime.

Mørch strives to complete the ritual, a Lone Mørch, a native of Denmark, took a job with CARE Nepal and fell in love with the people and the country. There, she was introduced to mountains as saintly abodes and to the notion of the sacred. She became focused on Kalais in Western Tibet. Kalais is held to be the center of the universe and believed to hold the white light of human consciousness. To complete the Kora, a ritual circumambulation of the mountain, is said to erase the sins of a lifetime.

Mørch strives to complete the ritual, and we meet her after her initial failed attempt to do so. Embracing sacred mountains as a metaphor for her life, she also fixates on the color red as a symbol for feminine sexuality and power. When she meets Gerry, her future husband, she is wearing her red coat. She feels the coat shapes this view of her in his eyes. She longs to be the "red coat me."

She undertakes the task of travelling with Gerry and leading a pilgrimage to Kalais to clear her karma. The reader is privy to her indecisiveness and second guessing as she leads this trip. We also witness her over-analysis of her time with Gerry. Mørch notes that, "So often in Western culture we seek someone to blame when something bad happens." Through most of this book she is struggling to come to terms with her own frailties, seeking to find her self-worth in Gerry's eyes and by completing the Kora. Despite her accomplishments, if she doesn't perceive Gerry as viewing her as the "red woman," then the problem is with the relationship or with Gerry. In many ways, she is self-absorbed and seeks her identity through others.

About two-thirds of the way through the book, Mørch reflects, noting that "she didn't know how to be both powerful and receptive, assertive and mind and heart." It is in the last third of the book and of Mørch's ten-year journey that she uses the term "dance" to describe the developing sense of trust in herself, a sense that she says "paled against the red coat me." She leads us to her conclusion that, "What others said or did was suddenly a lot less important than what I said or did in return."

Mørch fills her story with rich descriptions of Kalais and the pilgrimage for Kola. There is also quite a bit of description of discreet occurrences and reactive interpretations of many of the events in her life. At times, I found these descriptions difficult to wade through, singularly one-sided and self-absorbed. As I finished the memoir, I realized that if she had not detailed these events at such length, I could not have appreciated the struggle of her journey and celebrated her conclusion. In many ways, this is an adult version of a coming of age story of an adult woman offering personal insights with which we can all identify. Seeing Red: A Woman's Quest for Truth, Power, and the Sacred is well worth the read.

by Diane Stanton
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women ...more

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