Sacred Shit: Food for Spiritual Unfolding

English translation of Yoyo van der Kooi’s memoir now available as eBook

Sacred Shit: Food for Spiritual Unfolding
by Yoyo van der Kooi (Ma Prem Els) – yoyo.nl
Illustrated, self-published eBook, 2025
Available via bookbaby.com, in 270 countries
375 pages
ISBN:9798350998511

After eight years of fine-tuning, Yoyo van der Kooi’s illustrated e-book Sacred Shit: Food for Spiritual Unfolding has been published. The book is dedicated to Osho who initiated her as a sannyasin in July 1979.

It is the English translation and update of her book Bloeien in de Bagger (Blooming in the Mud) (bol.com), in which she recounts her life and work before and after Osho touched her third eye.

The book is an inspiring guide to transforming setbacks and challenges into spiritual growth and self-confidence. Yoyo interweaves her fascinating personal journey with eight stages of awakening and shows how we, like the lotus flower that miraculously transforms muddy water into purity and beauty, can also transform our inner struggles and the chaos of the world into wisdom and wonder.

The book is complemented by Yoyo’s own paintings and photos from her life and offers a highly personal, yet universal roadmap for anyone seeking meaning and inner peace.

Yoyo was born in Amsterdam in 1944, during the Second World War when the Netherlands was occupied by the Nazis. It was just before the Hunger Winter, when 20,000 people died of starvation. In these life-threatening times, Yoyo developed an indestructible zest for life.

Her childhood was severely shaped by the painful divorce of her parents when she was only six years old. This experience led to a lifelong passion for bridging, seemingly irreconcilable, opposites. With deep reverence for the sacred and a sharp humour about the absurdities of life, she shares her spiritual journey with wisdom and humour.

As a visual artist, she was able to process some of her unresolved childhood traumas through her paintings. She eventually won a prestigious first prize for European painting with her poignant works that capture both the beauty and suffering of the human condition.