“If you bring forth what is within you, / What is within you will save you,” so sayeth the Gospel of Thomas and the gospel of Joe Paddock. Abetted by his mentors of “inner ecology” Carl Jung and Lao Tzu, plus a long healing practice of poetry, Paddock offers a compelling guide to how to spade fruitfully the sacred soil of the second half of life, the “inner half” so necessary for wholeness, so often neglected or denied.

– James P. Lenfestey, author of Seeking the Cave: A Pilgrimage to Cold Mountain

“From one angle or another, I have been reciting the content of this book to myself, as it has evolved in me, for more than 50 years now. In large part it has had to do with an awakening to and acceptance of the guidance that is ever emerging from the unconscious by way of dreams, visions, synchronicities, and creative imaginings. My relationship with this emergent guidance greatly increased for me in midlife, following an intense confrontation with the unconscious and an extended period of creative or shamanic illness.” – from the Preface