Struggle, sweat, bleed, fall . . . then rise stronger than before.

Attending a single sex boarding school in Virginia, Lee Mills is a student with powerful charisma. Going to a school where the boys are happy, but the sheep walk funny, Lee and his friends have their share of good times and mischief until a conflict between Lee and his English professor, Dr. Gilder, draws a line between teacher and student, casting the two into an ideological war.

Antaeus is a humorous story of the importance of life lived according to principles, and a demonstration of how even through a seemingly crushing defeat, there is victory for one who remains true to himself.

The story of The Dolphin is found among the computer files of a man, Tom, who has recently died. Tom, middle-aged, reclusive, and who spent much time writing on his computer, had lived at home with his mother, Elaine, all his life. After his funeral Elaine invites a neighbour to one day look through Tom's files for anything that might be of interest. The neighbour, Andrew, accepts, and a week or so after the funeral he copies seven files from Tom's computer and takes them home to review. Andrew writes a prologue to explain how he has come to be in possession of The Dolphin, and then presents this story of Tom's Dolphin.

THE DOLPHIN

A man, Michael, seeks the refuge of an empty farm cottage near the sea, intending to recuperate alone from the recent, emotionally unsettling events in his life. On the morning of his first day he walks out to explore his surroundings but on climbing down the coastal cliff he slips, falls, and is knocked unconscious.

On coming to he finds himself on the beach, and walks into the sea to freshen his senses. Immediately he becomes aware of a peculiar sensation in his head, one that recedes, however, when he leaves the water. Further along the beach he finds a sheltered inlet and cove of rocks. There in the water once more he suddenly becomes aware of spoken words, coming not from around him but from, it seems, inside his head. And a dolphin swims into the inlet. Incredibly, the two begin a conversation, the dolphin explaining that Michael is hearing with inner senses. At this he guesses that the earlier mental sensations he felt were some kind of preparation for this exchange.

Prompted by Michael's curiosity the dolphin enters into a dialogue with him. In disbelief at what he hears Michael interrogates the creature, growing too insistent and forceful, however, and the dolphin becomes silent and returns to the open sea. Disconsolate, Michael returns to the cottage.

The next morning Michael returns to the cove and the dolphin. The dialogue continues and he learns of the power that preconceptions exert on experience, that it is believing that makes things so, and that life is an adventure in consciousness. The dolphin speaks of the state of grace in which all lives exist and comments on the human concern with being objective. There follow observations on religion and on the idea of God; on Earth as a time and space medium in which effective patterns can materialise as physical objects and events; on the mobility of mankind's unique reflective consciousness; on our notion of cause and effect; and on the way that beliefs and values and expectations steer the materialisation of inner affective patterns. The dolphin describes the manipulative nature of both religion, which traditionally promotes the notion of a fallen species steeped in original sin, and science, which insists that we are individually insignificant in an accidental and uncaring universe. The dolphin emphasises that at heart mankind is neither sinful nor insignificant. And that the world is unsafe only to the extent to which each of us believes it to be.

The day ends, the dolphin has gone and Michael returns in the twilight to the cottage. The next morning he eagerly sets off again for the cove but then badly twists his ankle on climbing down the cliff. The dolphin uses this 'misfortune' to instruct that all experience is legitimate. No matter how it seems, there are no mistakes. The dolphin describes how illness and injury are not accidents but purposeful events. The very qualities we experience in ourselves - curiosity, creativity, spontaneity - are, firstly, expressions of consciousness; a consciousness that possesses, too, an inherent yearning for self affirmation. Whenever we discover this desire for self affirmation in ourselves, we call this yearning, this primary quality of consciousness, love.

By the instruction given the dolphin and from the discoveries to which he is led, Michael returns to his cottage.

He wakes on a new morning, to make one final discover!

    Talia Norin, an equine veterinarian working in the vast foothill plains of Colorado, is still reeling from the untimely death of her fiance. Her veterinary practise is thriving even if her broken heart is not... and she certainly wasn't looking for love the day a mysterious stranger dropped literally into her life!
    This man, grievously wounded and wearing the evidence of torture on his ravaged body, has no choice but to trust Tally with his safety... and his life! Using all her medical expertise, Tally is able to heal his wounds, but when he wakes up with absolutely no recollection of who he is or what happened to him, Tally has serious doubts as to whether or not she can heal his soul. That, she feels, is up to Jesse Rodriguez, the hired man she employs to manage her ranch, Wild Horse Mesa.
    Jesse Rodriguez is a man with a gift. Claiming to see into animal minds, Jesse finds himself somewhat of an enigma, embraced by some, completely shunned by the scientific community... and even Tally has a hard time believing in the meta-physical world Jesse appears connected with. Still, when the handsome stranger Tally has named Mack begins to remember hints of a violent, dangerous past, she is forced to abandon conventional science and put her trust in Jesse's gift.
    With Jesse Rodriguez's help, Mack remembers more and more... and what he remembers casts serious doubt on his innocence. Tally begins to question her own emotions, believing Mack to be the victim of a violent assault... and when new information begins to surface out of Mack's fractured mind, things may not be what they seem at all. Was she falling in love with a man... or a murderer?
    And as if things weren't bad enough, someone is going around the countryside, shooting horses for kicks....
    A Dangerous Ride, is a fast-paced gallop into the oft-times spiritual world of horses; where violence and intrigue intrude on a peaceful Colorado mesa. Where one woman's quest to do the right thing could very well end in tragedy!

Twin children, derisively named Adam and Eve, were born in Lucas, Kansas - home of S.P. Dinsmore's concrete Garden of Eden. As children, they co-created an exclusive reality that included communicating telepathically and feeling each other's emotions. The story finds Adam and his twin sister Evelyn as financially successful adults in New York and Colorado. Separated from each other and their world by impenetrable walls of self protection, they remain confused by the memories of experiences that have left them estranged and lonely. When Evelyn is killed in a car accident, Adam insists that her body remain on life support while he deals with his unresolved guilt concerning their separation. Meanwhile, in an extended near-death experience, Evelyn explores the world of the half-dead, frustrated in her attempts to reestablish the childhood trust and communication she knew possible with her brother. Through their struggles, each faces their greatest fears and finds the internal strength to take their next step in life. Games From Eden is a metaphysical adventure spiced with synchronicity, precognition, symbolism and experiences of the human struggle to understand the games of life.

This story is based on a series of dreams that both authors have had over the past twenty years. It all begins with a dream, a nightmare from the past. Steve and Emily move to Alaska seeking adventure. What they find is an old sourdough named Mac and the beginning of a journey.

Emma was a young, Victorian Brooklyn seamstress. Independent, strong willed, intelligent and beautiful she had everything going for her. That is until James came into her life. A wealthy, handsome, debonair, prominent, older physician, James was also married into the cream of society. Their affair changed all four lives.

After the death of Mac, their mentor, Steve and Emily's ideal life begins to unravel. When their best friends are transferred to California and Steve is transferred to Vermont, they realize their life of bush flying and outdoor exploration is coming to an end.

James and Emma take a romantic ride through the sites and sounds of late 19th Century New York City. Silk top hats and lace, and horse-drawn cabs on gas-lit cobblestone streets all draw the reader into this world of Victorian elegance.

Steve and Emily's life deteriorates as a series of tragic events, jealousy and lies ultimately leads to a repeat of history. A repeat that only the right decision can remedy.

When Emma finds herself pregnant, her idyllic romantic ride soon comes crashing to an end. Loss, betrayal and blackmail sets the stage for her inevitable suicide.

Clues throughout the story link past life characters with present day characters. Dream sequences strategically placed throughout the present give enticing previews of events that happen in the past. All 19th Century sequences were written in past tense and all present day sequences in present tense. A story with two endings, one evolving from the other.

A very moving and inspirational poem by an influential black poet of the Harlem Renissance era, begins our main character's search in life, to climb the crystal stair. The story moves you through the remarkable life of, Maxine, her mother Rose, and Maxines's siblings. It is a story of difficult choices that the characters made in life, different lifestyles, tragedies and triumphs, and spans four decades of life for the black Bostonian family. This saga is a Yes I Can book.

The beginning of the story takes place in the 1950's in Boston's black working class districts, and continues to the present time, 2000. Maxine has serious choices that she has to make in her life, and the choices she makes are not always predictable. Growing up in a working class, dysfunctional family, with a strong mother whom she loves and respects, a shadowy father, who moves in and out of her life, and her many siblings, all who have stories to tell of their own, makes for interesting reading.

The opening scene begins with Maxine leading her family to safety from a horrific house fire in which everything material was lost. The family has to move until their house is rebuilt. Maxine lives through the violent break up of her mother and stepfather, makes some serious changes in her own life, thereby alienating her from her friends, but opening up the door to a new way of life. Little did Maxine know, but some of her life begins to mirror her mother's in many ways.

Throughout the many ups and downs in her life as she searches for the meaning of the crystal stair, readers will laugh, cry and finally feel the joys that Maxine discovers. This book gives a behind the veil peek at a black American girl who takes an unknown path in her search for answers, she chooses to become a Muslim in the 1960's Civil Rights Era. Follow her through adulthood. In Search of the Crystal Stair is about difficult choices one makes in life, rebuilding after tragedy strikes, and never giving up hopes of finding the object of your dreams.

The story is short, a novella, but it is packed full of heart and soul. Many readers will identify with it whether they are young or old. It crosses racial and ethnic barriers in its push to encourage others to dream, and work to accomplish their dreams despite difficulties.

To activate my life path, I found I needed to be unrestricted to travel. To travel I needed to be unrestricted. To be unrestricted I had to let go of the past. To let go of the past I had to move on. To move on I had to face the emotions of love and hate, anger and rejection. I needed to love myself enough to stand up for others. This is a direct recount of this passion.

The story is based on the alleged discovery of Elvis Presley's reincarnation in Mangalam, a small village set amidst the backwaters of the Malabar Coast in India. The subsequent events when an Elvis-mad matron from Memphis, Tennessee comes to claim the child as her very own make for a very hilarious reading. The events start unfolding when the astrologer called into cast the child's birth horoscope declares the child to be an avatar, a great reincarnation. Everybody assumes the reincarnation to be that of Lord Krishna, the deity worshipped in the village. But the two precocious daughters of Sunita, the neighbour and a distant relation of the child's parents, create, without meaning to, a feeling that the child is actually a reincarnation of Elvis Presley.

Neeli, the eldest of the two, editor of her college magazine and an aspiring journalist, manages to publish an article about the phenomenon in the "Memphis Tattler". Maggie Duckworth, a rich widow and fanatic in her devotion to Elvis, reads the article and lands in India to claim the child. She has Alonzo Bosworthy, a novice reporter from the tabloid, in tow to cover what she thinks will be a scoop. Besides, her ulterior motive is to chase out the present guardians of the Presley Foundation, with whom she had a long series of run-ins, and install the true heir to the throne of Graceland Mansions.

The Mangalam villagers meanwhile have come to very different conclusions about the impending visit of the Americans. The village barber, a fanatic Maoist, is convinced that the Americans are actually CIA agents coming to take over what he imagines to be the oil wealth hidden under the village. He organizes the farm workers to protest against the visit. Meanwhile, a defrocked priest and his small coterie of Christian followers in the village maintain that the child is actually the second Christ come to redeem the world, and maintain a vigil outside the reincarnation's house. They are there to prevent the child being spirited away to the West.

The barber's wild imagination had also infected the staid householders of the village and they want their cut of the oil wealth lying under their feet. Of course there is the village yokel suddenly transformed by a series of misunderstandings into a Greek scholar whose wild oratory is listened to by the villagers avidly but without understanding. By the time Maggie Duckworth arrives at the village she is met by all these forces, which she cannot fathom.

Things are not helped by the avaricious nature of the reincarnation's father, Mr. Keshavan, who dreams of inheriting Presley's Graceland on behalf of his son. As if these things were not enough for Maggie Duckworth, Bosworthy manages to get himself arrested as a spy with designs on India's cultural heritage when he wanders into the village temple. The story goes on to its ultimate denouement as the Indian papers, slow on the uptake, now create a country- wide furor making the incident take on an international flavour with formal protests being lodged with the American Ambassador in India and nearly bringing the Indian Government down for kowtowing to the Americans.

Sunita's two daughters though central to the theme are just onlookers and as bewildered as Maggie by the course of events they have unleashed. Babli, the younger one, is the agnostic with a healthy disrespect for the superstitions surrounding the village life. But she triggers off events leading to the acceptance of the child to be a reincarnation of Elvis.

FROM HATRED TO HEALING, A PRISONER'S DIALOGUE is a series of conversations between two men in a prison cell in an undisclosed country. One is the epitome of hatred, the other the epitome of love. It is a metaphor for the world in which we live and purposely has no ethnicity, names or time references. The story is universal. And the message, if understood by enough people around the world, can bring peace to for the first time in history.

We are poised on the edge. Enough information is being disseminated globally and enough people have been educated, that one message can be understood by large enough number of people to create a paradigm shift in human relationships.

FROM HATRED TO HEALING is the message the world needs to understand. It is a short and simple exchange between two hearts. And when hatred has an honest and open conversation with love, there can only be one outcome.

Annalia envisioned her life as paradise. Everything was heavenly until three furies stormed onto her lane, center stage. They nettled her and got under her skin. Ruled by monsters and fear, the girl's life was shrouded in darkness.

Who has not walked in Annalia's shoes? All children of life, regardless of age, encounter beastly characters and thorny obstacles. Listening to the spiritual guide who whispered wisdom of the ages, Annalia learned lessons to break free from dark night and move into a brighter day. Do you know the role thoughts, emotions, and free will play in conquering life's demons? Annalia does. Are you able to translate universal signs that pop up giving direction along the way? Do you know how personal resources might be used to weed a beastly mess from life's plot? How they might uproot a dream? Annalia learned how by mastering divine magic. Can your spirit soar aligned with its Star Code even when gravity-worshippers attempt to weigh it down? Can you shine your HeartLight to illuminate the way out of a nightmare? Annalia can.

This self-health novel provides life lessons taught by Lazy Lapis, the Dream Magician. Return with Annalia and her guide to The Forest of Perpetual Night that lies on the far edge of Tabankhu. Master life's craft and turn in an inspired performance daily. Learn to recognize horrible happenings-black holes, shifting landscapes, bottomless abysses, physical afflictions, sinkholes of despair and dead-end mazes- for what they are, life tests, nothing more or less. Refuse to wander through life as a Sleepy Noggin. When you show that you know what you know, you will be cast as a star in a living dream. If a young girl can star in life, you can, too. (A reader's guide is included as an appendix.)

Involved with the extrasensory, with religious teachings and theory, with a true out-of-body experience as it occurs.     An adventure story based upon factual events.     Kewe waking to find himself trapped inside a box.    In reality he is above himself, in a cubicle where he is sleeping.

After I had published my first book, A First Step - Understanding Guillain-Barré Syndrome, it occurred to me that the dream sequences described in that book would make for an interesting read on their own, as a collection of short - but impossible - stories.

Thus were sewn the seeds for this publication. The 'postscripts' that have been added are included to assist readers who have not read the earlier book, and who therefore may not have a full understanding of the circumstances I found myself in.

During my seven-month confinement in Intensive Care, on a ventilator for breathing assistance, diagnosed with severe acute chronic Guillain-Barré Syndrome - sometimes referred to in its abbreviated form as GBS, I experienced many dreams and hullucinations, some of which are described in the book. The medications I was taking, the inability to distinguish between night and day, being thrust into an unfamiliar environment, or something inherent in the disease itself may have been the cause. Although these dreams are not necessarily in the sequence in which I dreamed them, it is possible to connect them to certain events or phases of my illness.

Initially, I was paralysed from my toes up to my eyebrows. This did not appear to inhibit my mobilty in some of the dreams though. One moment I was in a wheelchair, the next flying an F16 fighter jet, even though I had never flown before, other then as a fare paying passenger.

I found these episodes much more intense than the garden-variety dream. In fact, most seemed so real that sometimes it was difficult, if not impossible, to separate them from reality. Every effort has been made to keep the original story lines. It must, of course be understood there were a few - although very few - grey areas, and only in those situations have I linked different parts of the story by the logical threads suggested by circumstances. For the most part, my recall of these dreams was total.

Except for my relatives, the names used to identify characters are fictitious and used to enable the reader to follow the thread of the story. In these sequences, any similarity to any person, living or deceased, other than in the case of the exception noted, is entirely coincidental and unintended.

I hope you enjoy your read.

The Author.

The Heart Shaped Amulet is based on an heirloom piece of jewelry. A heart shaped necklace with a diamond periphery and a center crystal looking portal which is a doorway to a different dimension. the necklace was deemed an amulet when back in Sicily, the great great great grandmother of the heroine, Chloe, was struck dead by a bolt of lightning in a black lake. A mysterious and questionable reputed High Bishop, who obtained the amulet in Rome, placed it on dead Maria's neck and she was brought back to life. Upon returning to life, she was bestowed with psychic abilities credited to the heart shaped amulet. Since then, all the women of her bloodline possess these psychic abilities which is both a blessing and a curse. Soul saving missions are accomplished by Chloe throughout her lifetime and only at the end of her life is it clear that the possessor of the heart shaped amulet is in need of saving herself! One soul Chloe saves is that of her beloved Marble Earthquake Eyes who later, after his death, will save his and Chloe's son. The Hearth Shaped Amulet is good versus evil to the max and it points out strongly how vulnerable we mortals are, and how easily we are fooled.

Bill's life, from the outside, looked to be normal and mundane. Very few people were privy to his secrets. He cherished his private life and invited only a select few to share in his world. His world consisted mainly of family. They were the only ones who held all the pieces of the puzzle that made up the man. His life was a mystery to outsides. To the insiders they knew it to be a hard and sometimes sad existance. But only a few knew that.

Cancer took Bill at an early age leaving his young family to cope with their loss. During his life he had tried to be an honest, hard-working man. He left behind a legacy of good intentions and unfulfilled promises that there just wasn't enough time to complete. But in death Bill had become a bigger part of the grand scheme of things. He was no longer restricted by the weaknesses of the human body. He could do things that mortals could not. His life had now taken a different path. Death hadn't ended Bill's existence. It had just changed it. Now as a Guardian Angel he had new responsibilities and new adventures to contend with. People needed him like never before. All of his good intentions an promises would now get a chance to be realized.

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Skip: From Common Sense to Cosmology is a book about our failure to apply simple, straightforward thinking, contributing to a flawed development in our lifestyles, social and political systems, education and ultimately also in contemporary science.

Skip is six years old and the author is eight when they meet. They are in a small, early 1950's, sawmill camp and later become neighbours on small farms. The story follows the life of Skip through a series of snapshots describing a proud and independent child and later, man, who is too stubborn to learn to read. He chooses to think and live like a pre-literary person, gathering his experiences through the oral aspects of his world and in so doing remains firmly embedded in common sense. The episodes are humorous, unique and true to life. The author, through his association and friendship with Skip, is inspired to embrace a similar common sense in his more literate and scientific world.

Supported by Skip's keen, down-to-earth judgement, the critiques and commentaries show how our contemporary sophisticated, abstract thinking has led us astray in many respects. Finally, the book offers an insight into how Relativity would be judged by the practical thinking individual who bases all judgement and analysis on common sense. The book concludes with a fresh and surprising review of those historic events that led up to the Theory of Relativity.