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In this unforgettable 2.5-hour video, Ken Wilber reads select passages from his book Grace and Grit, which documents the life and death of his wife Treya Killam Wilber. Ken's time with Treya was one of the most defining experiences of his life, and this is the very first time that he has talked in-depth about her death since she passed away in 1989. The depth and beauty of Ken and Treya's story is an inspiration to us all. It was tremendously moving to hear Ken read these words in front of a live audience—the room was so captivated, and Ken's vulnerability was so touching, the sound of a pin falling would hit you like a mushroom cloud in the heart.
This is one of the greatest love stories ever told, and you will be forever changed upon hearing it.
"It takes grace, yes—and grit!" –Treya Killam Wilber
In 1983, Ken Wilber met the love of his life. Her name was Terry Killam, or Treya as she later called herself, and she was absolutely stunning. She was beautiful, intelligent, deeply conscious, and more full of life and vitality than anyone Ken had ever met. She had a wonderfully playful sense of humor, was passionate about nature, art, service, psychology, and spirituality, and radiated warmth and kindness from her very core. As Ken says, "it was love at first touch"—there was a powerful and undeniable sense of familiarity that both Ken and Treya felt when they met. She was the woman Ken had been waiting for his entire life, and before long they were married.
Just ten days after their wedding, before they really had a chance to begin their life together, they received the harrowing news: Treya was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer. For the next five years Treya and Ken did everything they possibly could to recover from this devastating illness, including a full arsenal of orthodox and alternative treatments, before Treya's life came to an untimely end in 1989.
This is their story. It's a story of incredible suffering, of radical liberation, and of an ever-present love that transcends time and space itself—a love that reaches so far beyond life and death, they both seem like very small things in comparison.
As you listen to Ken, you will notice that the book weaves three different narratives together. The first voice is Treya herself, taken from her private journals that span from first meeting Ken to her death in 1989, which she insisted that Ken use in order to tell their extraordinary story. The second voice belongs to the Ken Wilber who was walking this difficult path alongside Treya, step by step, not yet aware of where their story would lead. The third voice also belongs to Ken, but as the "omniscient narrator" who is lacing these narratives together and telling the story from the perspective of someone who has lived the full experience.
As Ken reads he slides seamlessly from one narration to the next, which creates an almost palpable sense that there is only one single Spirit here—that through every experience, behind every distinct set of eyes, this One Spirit is tasting the intrinsic pain, sweetness, and wholeness of its own manifestation, moment to moment. It's love loving love, always and forever. |