Why Are We Here?

The Teacher and Nun were shaped by the Roman Catholic sisters, who taught Myss from high school through graduate school. The Queen appears when she wants "to blast people out" of wanting a realized life without accepting the opportunities for growth presented to them.

"The classroom becomes transformed into my royal court," she writes, "and I symbolically 'decapitate' people who are yearning for liberation yet are prevented by those very fears from moving forward."

Myss is talking a lot about archetypes these days as she tours for her newest book, "Sacred Contracts: Awakening Your Divine Potential." The core of the book is the belief that, before we are born, our souls agree to learn specific lessons in our upcoming lifetime. In order to fulfill that agreement, we get involved with certain people, find ourselves in certain places, and have to deal with certain life circumstances. How we handle all of that is the measure of our growth and progress.

Myss believes that we can better identify our contracts (because there are many) if we understand what energies are operating in our lives. Her book presents a very detailed program for identifying which energies are at play in our lives, and how to work with them.

"Sacred Contracts" is Myss's fifth book; the first two, "AIDS: Passageway to Transformation" and "The Creation of Health" were co-authored with Norman Shealy, M.D. The other two--"Anatomy of the Spirit" and "Why People Don't Heal And How They Can"--both made it to the New York Times best-sellers list. In addition to her books, she has created a number of tapes and CDs (through Sounds True), has appeared on Oprah, and was one of public television's fund-raising stars.