A New Title from Mark Nepo Calls Us to Look Within to Grow

Facing the Lion, Being the Lion is work from the heart that helps us find our own courage and experience how connection to our own core connects us to all of humankind, as well as to nature and spirit itself. Nepo invites us to encounter the stories of ordinary people, political activists, artists, and spiritual teachers from all traditions--people who are summoning the best of who they are in all kinds of moments, great and small.

(PRWEB) September 24, 2007 -- Facing the Lion, Being the Lion (Conari Press, October 2007) is work from the heart that helps us find our own courage and experience how connection to our own core connects us to all of humankind, as well as to nature and spirit itself. Nepo invites us to encounter the stories of ordinary people, political activists, artists, and spiritual teachers from all traditions--people who are summoning the best of who they are in all kinds of moments, great and small.

"This is an education I never had in school, but which life has been shouting at us all, as long as I can remember. This is an education of what matters. So, if to find our way to our core is to face the lion, then to stand by our core is to be the lion. And to then sustain the practice of living from our core--to live out of our courage--is to find our way in the world. These notions frame the journey of this book.

You will encounter many examples of courage in this book, many stories of ordinary people summoning the best of who they are in all kinds of moments, great and small. It is important how you relate to these stories. For it is easy to feel diminished rather than inspired by such remarkable events, so great is our urge to compare. But inspire means to inhale, not measure against. So I invite you to inhale these stories, to let them fill your lungs and circle your heart, to let them empower you to stand more firmly by your core and a little taller in the world.

I have come to believe that we can only learn about and discover the capacity and meaning of our courage in the context of our struggles, in how we face and inhabit the challenges life presents to us. In this, courage is an applied art of spirit. It is not something we can manipulate, but only live into. One that we must, ultimately, inhabit alone, but one which we must enliven together." ~Mark Nepo

Facing the Lion, Being the Lion
Finding Inner Courage Where It Lives
Mark Nepo

"Pained by war and aware of injustice in the world, we are in need of wisdom, hope, encouragement. Mark Nepo gives us all of that in this poetic, profoundly thoughtful rumination on how we might live."
--Howard Zinn

"This is an invaluable book and resource for our changing times."
--Angeles Arrien, Ph.D., cultural anthropologist and author of

The Second Half of Life and The Four-Fold Way "Facing the Lion, Being the Lion . . . made me stronger, clearer and more honest with myself. It is the best kind of self-help book--an honest reflection of the human condition that teaches us how to move more deeply into life."
--Robert Inchausti, author of Subversive Orthodoxy

Mark Nepo is a poet, philosopher, and teacher. Nepo serves as Program Officer for the Fetzer Institute in Kalamazoo, Michigan, a non-profit foundation devoted to fostering awareness of the power of love and forgiveness in an emerging global community. He is the author of several books including, The Book of Awakening (Conari Press, 2000), which was a Books for a Better Life finalist. Visit him at www.MarkNepo.com.

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