In June of 1997 my life changed. I had been twice married and divorced—to a pro-football player and coach, then a lawyer—and had been living with an English musician for 17 years. I had been a model, a psychotherapist, an actor, a seamstress. As I sat one day trying to make sense of it all for THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE article 'Lives', I gave up.

I realized I had no idea what it all meant. I also realized I had only one ambition, to somehow use it all to make life better. But how? What could I do? After all my seeking—in the refuge of marriage, in the halls of academia and the profession of psychology, in the Hollywood night life of drugs, sex and rock & roll, in the acting-school life of New York City, and in the volumes of literature on spiritual enlightenment, I had no answer. And I wanted an answer more than I had ever wanted anything. In frustration, I wrote the words, "I want to be used. How can I help?" and heard the silent answer, "FINISH WHAT YOU START".

That was the beginning of the dialogue transcribed in HOW TO BE PERFECT. Over a period of nine months I wrote whatever questions came to mind from, How am I going to pay the rent? to What are black holes? Always I received an answer. Sometimes the answer was silence and when I asked why, was told I needed to be clear about what I wanted to know and I needed to be calm and patient in my ignorance.

The answers I wrote with my own hand amazed me, thrilled me, baffled me and sometimes seemed dead wrong. I decided not to decide and to just write. I was choosing faith. It felt a lot like learning to do cartwheels when I was a kid. I would throw myself forward with only the vaguest notion about what I was doing and with fear that I would fall and hurt myself. I could 'feel' a perfect cartwheel somewhere inside me. The thrill of it egged me on, ever hopeful. Each time I flopped I tried to figure out what I had done wrong and correct it but quickly gave up in favor of just hurling myself forward with blind faith in that feeling within. Suddenly it happened—a perfect cartwheel. I hadn't figured it out and couldn't explain how I did it, but I could do it—again and again. I had it! Something in me knew how. It wasn't my mind and it wasn't my body. What was it?

From then on, every time I did a cartwheel I was performing a little miracle and I knew it. The sheer joy of it. Look what I can do!

Now my desire for perfect love and understanding was egging me on to ask questions, trusting that there were answers and that I could have them. My dialogue continues and has been such a life-transforming experience it became obvious early on I was realizing my ambition. My heart's desire was spilling out on the page and in my life.

By publishing this very intimate journal I want to share, not the sometimes embarrassing details of my ragged, thick-headed human life, but the day-by-day process of learning to trust and use the infinite wisdom that awaits us all.

Sherry Sword
New York City
April 1998

RAY BENNETT of the progressive rock group FLASH says:

Reading HOW TO BE PERFECT will change your life and how you feel forever. You can be perfect. Perfection is not only possible, it is an undeniable fact. We are all steadfastly moving towards it, each in our own way.

But why so slowly? Why not instantaneously? Perfection is always available right now. We have all experienced those 'magic' moments when, mysteriously, things happen perfectly. This book will tell you how to be where you want to be right now, how to be thrilled by your life, how to rid yourself of fear, how to live PERFECTLY.

We all want a better life,...