“With a hard-won heart, Mark Nepo takes us inside the miracle of our radiant and fragile human life. In every page, Mark reveals the universal in the personal, intimating the wholeness that is best expressed in paradox. This book is raw and painful and indestructibly hopeful. It tells us what we already know in fresh and surprising moments of recognition. This is a gift which we can open endlessly.”

BRUCE TIFT
author of Already Free

“A moving testament to the human spirit.”

JON KABAT-ZINN
author of Wherever You Go, There You Are

“Amazingly honest and inspiring for those confronting serious illness or dramatic transitions . . . Nepo’s message is for everyone.”

LIBRARY JOURNAL STARRED REVIEW

“‘God, Self and Medicine’ and ‘Troubled Waters’ are groundbreaking, compassionate essays that achieve an epic majesty.”

HERBERT MASON
professor emeritus of history and religious thought at Boston University and translator of Gilgamesh

“Deep optimism is when you can still see—through the darkness of illness, despair, death, and injustice—the single light that illuminates the world. Mark never loses touch with that source. That is his gift. These essays, a collection of jewels, are his gifts to the rest of us . . . Mark Nepo is a rare being, a poet who does not overuse language, a wise man without arrogance, a teacher who always speaks with compassion, and an easygoing love-to-listen-to-him storyteller . . .”

JAMES FADIMAN, PHD
author of The Other Side of Haight and coauthor of Essential Sufism

PRAISE FOR MARK NEPO

“Mark Nepo is one of the finest spiritual guides of our time.”

PARKER J. PALMER
author of A Hidden Wholeness and The Courage to Teach

“Mark Nepo is a Great Soul. His resonant heart—and his frank and astonishing voice—befriend us mightily on this mysterious trail.”

NAOMI SHIHAB NYE
author of You and Yours, 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East, and Red Suitcase

“Mark Nepo is an eloquent spiritual teacher.”

HERBERT MASON
professor emeritus of history and religious thought at Boston University and translator of Gilgamesh

“Mark Nepo joins a long tradition of truth-seeking, wild-hearted poets—Rumi, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Mary Oliver—and deserves a place in the center of the circle with them.”

ELIZABETH LESSER
cofounder of Omega Institute and author of Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow

“Mark Nepo’s work is as gentle and reliable as the tides, and as courageous as anyone I’ve known in looking deeply into the mysteries of the self.”

MICHAEL J. MAHONEY
author of Human Change Processes

“Nepo is a consummate storyteller with a rare gift for making the invisible visible.”

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY