Description: When we stand in the presence of the natural world of creation, something very powerful occurs. Our heart senses a raw and vital connection between ourselves and the handiwork of God revealed in the trees and rivers. Our eye catches some small detail and we are opened up to union with the world around us and to the Creator of that world. It does not take a magnificent vista; it could be a snowdrop or the sound of the wind. Our lives are informed by the wonder, the awe, and the radical amazement hidden in the beauty of the wild. We somehow grow in step with all that is about us....

Description: Cairns have decorated the landscapes of cultures throughout time. Piles of stone-one stone placed on top of another-are set in place all over the earth to recall battles, identify burial sites, mark trails, and spur hearts and minds to remember sacred, noble, and critical events. They are landmarks. They are sacramental presences in space and time. Our lives are littered with markers of meaning. They all reveal who we are, where we have been, and offer us a jumping off point for the future. In the true mystic tradition, everything straddles meaning and is potentially available to...

Description: The notion and phrase of ""entering the stream"" has long been an image for merger and union. Most often it is meant to sum up the idea of union with the Divine Principle or God. Less often, yet still common, it is used to image the union of ideas, bodies, and movements. The sense that one thing folds into or flows into another and gets lost is still a major underpinning toward the belief that there is some ""ah ha"" moment in life where we are able to drift out of simple, commonplace existence and enter the field of ALL knowing. We believe that there can be and is a moment of...

Along the Road-Tales from the Journey is a practical guide for patients and families going through some very serious and difficult issues. It is here to enable focus and meaning in a time that is fraught with confusion and pain. It is also for people who are not involved in hospice--people that recognize the value of keeping track of the journey for others to have "in case" they should suddenly be removed from the trail of life. It is for those who recognize the personal value in journaling their days for self-reflection and perspective. It is for those who know they are dying, and for those...

Description: There are a lot of books about leadership out there. I wanted to stir the pot and make some suggestions that I have not heard yet. Leadership is not about sticking qualities all over yourself, like dozens of ""yellow sticky notes"": ""Today I will learn time management. Tomorrow I will develop integrity."" Mere information is not enough to change us. Data may lead to transformation, but it is not enough to transform us on its own. Leadership is not about ""trends"" and ""buzzwords."" Leadership is about personhood. Personhood is where this transformation truly takes place....

Description: Men have been spit up onto shore by whales and great fish since the beginning of time. This has been going on for forever; perhaps, even longer than forever. This may be true. It may also be true that men have spit whales and great fish up onto shore since the beginning of time. This has also been going on or forever; perhaps, even longer than forever. Which of these happened first, I cannot say. Who knows; who can say? Regardless, before being spit up on land both men and fish sat idly by inside the bellies of their captors, ruminating on their fate-wondering what it all...

Description: Apparently, in 1338 and well into 1339, Death showed up for a grand performance at a little village of Nestorian Christians. The village was known as Issyk-Kul; it lay south of Lake Balkhash, Russia. The cemetery headstones made clear a major work of the macabre had taken place in that short year. Three of the stones actually told us that the THE PLAGUE killed the people buried there. It was etched into their epitaph. THE PLAGUE. And so it began. One of Europe's largest choreographed pieces--composed by Death--began in a humble village and played over and over again through towns...

About the Contributor(s): N. Thomas Johnson-Medland is the CEO of Lighthouse Hospice, Inc., of Cherry Hill, New Jersey. He is the author of Bridges, Paths, and Waters; Dirt, Sky, and Mountains, Cairn-Space, Entering the Stream, Along the Road, From the Belly of the Whale, Dance Macabre, Windows and Doors, as well as Turning Within and Duende. Glinda G. Johnson-Medland is a poet, therapist, and writer who lives in the Pocono Mountains with Tom, Zachary and Josiah. She loves gardening, the outdoors, and finding a quiet spot in the sun to read from time to time. Bob and Sarina Cook are the...

Description: ""Duende is that place in us where the two halves of our life are conjoined. It is the place where we go down into the self and gather up that opposing force to our immediate nature. It involves the undoing of the 'pretending-everything-is-okay-mechanism' in us and it is an overall waking up to the forces of conflict in life and actually mustering a strength to make abiding choices. Many throughout time have likened this awaking process to dreams and forgetfulness and because of that it seeks to reveal itself in shadows and reflections."" These are poems and images that evoke and...

If compromise and disappointment have a home, it is midlife. Here, suffering is like breathing. Longing is like dreaming. Standing midstream in the abrasive forces of life, author N. Thomas Johnson-Medland has learned to wade through the erosion and entropy of failure and incompleteness. And yet, in spite of these massive forces attempting to wear down the very vitality that sustains life, he has come to abide in the fact that life is amazing, wonder-filled, and truly awesome. In this book, Johnson-Medland teaches us that our place in the cosmos is full of joy. Our island is hope. Our vision...