Contribute to creating a healing environment

Thomas Moore spoke recently at the Log Cabin in Holyoke, MA to 275 health care professionals working in the New England area. Following his presentation at the conference, Creating a Healing Environment for the Mind, Body, and Spirit, attendees were invited to participate in alternative healing methods, including meditation, music, and acupuncture.

Moore will discuss related themes on Tuesday, October 17 2006, when he joins Jila Nikpay for How to Be Healed By Your Illness, at the Ted Mann Concert Hall in Minneapolis, for an evening sponsored by the University of Minnesota's Center for Spirituality and Healing and Zenith Services.

Title: Healing through Illness
Date: Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Time: 7:00 pm, book signing and reception to follow
Location: Ted Mann Concert Hall, Minneapolis
Cost: Free. Requires reservations
Registration: Online will be available in September or call 612-624-9459 to register early.

The desire is to offer a new perspective on the experience of illness for those who are ill and for those affected by a loved one’s illness. To be included:
-- Welcome and introduction by Center Director, Dr. Mary Jo Kreitzer who will briefly distinguish healing from curing and talk about the role of Arts in Healing
-- Artist and poet Jila Nikpay will share her involvement with the Heroines: Transformation in the Face of Breast Cancer project
-- An Artistic program with Minnesota artists will be woven through the evening
-- Thomas Moore will expand on "How to Be Healed By Your Illness", his essay in Heroines: Transformation in the Face of Breast Cancer

The sponsors want to fill the 1200-seat theatre by sharing this free event with the community.

On its site, the Hospice of Windsor and Essex County, Ontario offers Carl Morgan’s 33-page book Man to Man:
A Practical Guide For Male Caregivers When Breast Cancer Strikes Their Loved Ones as a free PDF download.

Read the previous Barque: Thomas Moore posts "Moore participates in photography project" and "Moore invited to write for photography exhibit" for background about the October 17 event.

Recent radio interview with Moore now online

Thomas Moore participated in a telephone interview for radio program Beyond Reason hosted by Karlen Evins and Teddy Bart in Nashville, Tennessee. Moore’s half-hour interview aired March 31, 2006 and can be downloaded. His topic? Care of the Soul. At the end of the interview, Moore says he has submitted the manuscript for his book about "finding your life's work" and he is continuing to explore soul in the life of Jesus.

According to its website, Beyond Reason focuses on the unknown and examines subjects such as Near Death Experiences, quantum physics, the power of prayer and other-worldly phenomena.

Thomas Moore's new foreword is about terror

In The Buddha and the Terrorist, Satish Kumar tells the tale of Angulimala (Wearer of a Finger Necklace) and his encounter with the Buddha.

"International terrorism may have become the central specter of our time, but the threat of violence is as old as history. Among all the experiences of the Buddha, perhaps this story of his eye-to-eye encounter with a fearsome terrorist is the one most relevant and vital for us today. What happens when a man committed to violence is confronted by a man committed to nonviolence? Who is more powerful? Who can influence whom? The Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., the Dalai Lama, have all sought to inspire us. Satish Kumar’s retelling of the ancient Buddhist tale of transformation speaks to the possibility of changing the world."

A new edition of the tale will be available September 1, 2006, with a foreword by Thomas Moore. Moore writes,

"The Lord, the source of life, truly inspires terror because life is so mysterious and overwhelming and because it offers so much vitality and so much death. According to a classic definition, the holy is mysterium tremendum et fascinans, that is, a mystery that makes you tremble and fascinates you. The ultimate terror is a stark realization of the holiness and awesomeness of life.

But everything is subject to human neurosis and psychosis. It's quite proper to tremble at the sight and feel of nature's beauty and power, but it's a travesty for anyone to force another to tremble at the sight of weapons and savagery. The most beneficial of things can be twisted into something dangerous and ugly. When that happens, we usually add an "ism" to the word. Community becomes communism, nationality becomes nationalism, and terror becomes terrorism. Terrorism is a sacrilege, and our task is to respond by restoring the holiness of life's power."

The Buddha and the Terrorist
Hardcover: 144 pages
Publisher: Algonquin Books (September 1, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN: 1565125207

Satish Kumar and Thomas Moore are speaking together this month in Plymouth, England.