In this new Integral Stage Author Series episode, Layman sits down with Dr. Jen Peer Rich to talk about her recently published book, The Alchemy of Being a House.In this poetic, fiercely honest memoir, Jen Peer Rich invites us inside the living house of her body shaped by early childhood cancer, trauma, chronic illness, disability, caregiving and decades of survival. Told through many rooms and different selves, this is the story of what happens when a person dares to listen to their inner voice and follow them home. Inside these pages lives Ruth, Jen’s loyal guide dog of cosmic wisdom. There are splintered selves and barking truths, mystical blueprints and healing thresholds. Through it all moves the question: What if I was never meant to be fixed—but listened to? The Alchemy of Being a House is not a linear story, it’s a circle. A memoir of multiplicity, spiritual embodiment, and transformation that resonates with anyone navigating trauma, chronic pain, intergenerational healing, or the longing to belong to oneself.Jen Peer Rich, PhD is an author, artist, and alchemist whose work explores healing, multiplicity, and the spiritual architecture of selves. Her debut memoir, The Alchemy of Being a House, is the first in The Circle of Selves Trilogy-a series of intimate, genre-defying books tracing the nonlinear path of trauma integration and homecoming. With a background in ecological philosophy and decades of lived experience as a disabled, queer caregiver, Jen brings a rare blend of insight, humor, and radical compassion to her storytelling. She writes in collaboration with her many inner selves-including Ruth, a loyal inner watchdog who speaks in barked wisdom-and lives in Florida beside a lake with her beloved wife, daughter, and rescue dogs.https://www.amazon.com/Alchemy-Being-House-Memoir-Trilogy/dp/B0FLWHZ829/