Moving on from her first enquiry into fear and vulnerability (described in her book Nothing Special) Mary Booker here offers a guide to the roots and nature of desire. She draws on her autobiographical writing, movement art, poetry, Buddhist practice and dramatherapy skills to explore the origins, impact, constraints and blossoming of desire in her own life.

Amongst the questions she considers:
• If desire is for something other, does a sense of lack always accompany it?
• Does one desire always point to a deeper desire?
• Does desire always lead to suffering, as suggested in Buddhism?
• Desire is highly motivating. How can we best access that energy?
• Is desire by nature insatiable? Does it always seek more?
• Is desire essential to life?
• Why do illness and depression remove desire? Are they too absorbing?
• What is the relationship between desire and vulnerability?

'Touching the Flame' includes 40 of Mary’s poems and has chapters on Needs and Desire; Lack and Longing; Buddhism and Desire; Greco-Roman Views of Desire; Desire and Creativity; Women and Desire; and the Sumerian myth of ‘The Descent of Inanna to the Great Below’.