Years ago, when I was making furniture for clients and a couple of local galleries, I brought a table into a gallery for an upcoming show presented by local woodworkers. When the manager asked me about the sales price I gave him a number. He laughed and said, “You’ve got to be kidding. Get out of here. Let me take care of this.” So much for marketing my own work.

Once again other people have set a price on several years of almost daily work that now takes the form of a book. My in-house marketing agent says I am supposed to tell you that I have published Into This Radiance in both a print and digital format. It is easily available through Amazon, though I hope you will buy it from an independent bookstore. It looks like this:

When people ask me what the book is about, I usually stumble, not feeling sure how to answer. Perhaps it is enough to say that the book contains as many colors as the green ash tree outside my window in October. The book is part memoir, a tribute to a place, a set of lyric essays, a little cautious instruction, and musings about how to live thoughtfully in the world around us. If a crushed leaf emits a fragrance, so the turning of the pages reveals an appreciation for the gift of life and a sense that the whole world is alive, conscious, and waiting for us to be attentive, if not loving witnesses to its conditions and changes.

As people begin to read the book, they tell me that they are approaching it as if it were a daybook: they read one of the short essays each day and take time to ponder its themes. Another person sent me photos of her amazingly creative response. Constanza von der Pahlen, whom I met at the first public reading of the book, arranged Yellow Bay stones on the pages to reflect images in some of the essays.

I have at last completed a very long process of awakening to an idea, converting that idea into language that required editing and arranging, painting a cover, and then releasing all this into the world. If you purchase the book, or happen upon one, I hope you find something of value, as did the person who bought my table long ago.