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Praise for The Ashokan Way
“In this beautiful, elegant, and important book, Gail Straub takes us on a year of walks in the landscape she calls home. But she’s really describing a walk we all can take no matter where we live-the walk that bridges all the landscapes of our being: our connection to place, to each other, to our inner sense of self and outer sense of responsibility to the earth and its peoples. Quoting the ancient I Ching, she writes about “coming to rest in motion.” She should know: a world traveler and social activist, Gail brings the steady calm she finds in the mountains to her work at peacemaking in a troubled world. ”
–Elizabeth Lesser, NY Times bestselling author of Broken Open
“Walk with Gail Straub in her beloved mountains. Let her take you through the change of seasons, let her show you the altering light and shadow, the dark. You will see all that is visible and all that is not—the mystery that can only be sensed, the kind of beauty that can stun the viewer, or move her to tears. Gail Straub, a part of nature herself, has learned how to lose the static and friction of modern day life, finding a way to live at peace and in balance with nature, accepting the opposites of life and death as part of the Ashokan Way. This is a beautiful and profound book.”
–Abigail Thomas, Bestselling author of A Three Dog Life
“What is it to truly come home? Is it not to deeply inhabit the landscapes we are in and to bring all that we are and have been into relationship with them? In The Ashokan Way Gail Straub has illuminated this understanding with beauty, respect, and poignancy. She teaches us to look at and inhabit the places we live in, however grand or humble they may be, with total attention and compassion.”
–Gunilla Norris, author of Being Home
“Nimble and ecumenical in substance, elegant and melodious in style, Straub’s prose testifies to how place both elevates and holds our human egos grounded—how listening attentively to its cyclical rhythms keeps our own instruments tuned and humming—ready to serve.”
–Lissa Kiernan, Poet, author of Glass Needles & Goose Quills
Praise For The Rhythm of Compassion
“. . . This book is a thorough exploration of the creative and critical tension between action and contemplation. It is a wonderful achievement of the book to disclose so many of the secret bridges between the inner hemisphere of the soul and the outer world of action. Gail’s touch is sure as she grounds both worlds critically within the overarching world of narrative. The balance she recommends will be crucial in setting the tonality of our new millennium.”
–John O’Donohue, author, Anam-Cara
“Gail Straub has written a book that addresses with great insight one of the central spiritual questions of our time—how do we care for others while still caring for ourselves? Her book is a must for everyone seeking answers.”
–Caroline Myss, author, Anatomy of the Spirit
“How many of us have turned away from the ever-present suffering in our troubled world, out of despair and hopelessness about knowing how to help? Gail Straub tackles this issue head-on in this beautiful, wise, and practical book…. Gail speaks with a voice of total authenticity, great compassion, and a seasoned understanding of all the challenges, joys, and dangers that one is likely to encounter along the path of service.”
–John Welwood, author, Love and Awakening
Praise For Returning to My Mother’s House
“Unraveling the narrative of motherhood in all its forms, Returning to My Mother’s House is a book of enormous transformation, intimacy, and heart.”
–Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues
“Gail Straub’s memoir, Returning to My Mother’s House: Taking Back the Wisdom of the Feminine, shines as a model for a life lived outside convention . . . By drawing her mother’s portrait in words bright with detail, Straub finds the feminine principle that she almost unwittingly sacrificed in her own life. The contrasts between the former bohemian, upward-striving mother and the international innovator daughter are both sharp and tender. …In powerful and profound ways, this extraordinary woman has lived her mother’s dream.”
–Molly Peacock, poet, author of Paradise, Piece by Piece
“In this healing story Gail Straub has written an eloquent and compelling narrative of a daughter’s thirty-year journey to reconnect with her late mother’s authentic self, and the discovery of her own powerful feminine spirit in the process. This book honors not only Gail and her mother but also the feminine power in all of us.”
–Loung Ung, author of First They Killed My Father
The Ashokan Way
Landscape’s Path into Consciousness
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by Gail Straub
With a Foreword by Stephen Cope
Copyright 2018 Gail Straub
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced without prior written permission from the publisher: Homebound Publications, Postal Box 1442, Pawcatuck, Connecticut 06379. www.homeboundpublications.com
Published in 2018 by Homebound Publications
Front Cover Image and interior images © by Kate McGloughlin
Front Cover Painting is from the collection of Rob and Carla Shultis
Cover and Interior Designed by Leslie M. Browning
Print ISBN 978-1-947003-69-9
Homebound Publications Ensuring the mainstream isn’t the only stream.
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Homebound Publications is committed to ecological stewardship. We greatly value the natural environment and invest in environmental conservation. Our books are printed on paper with chain of custody certification from the Forest Stewardship Council, Sustainable Forestry Initiative, and the Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification.
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Dedication
For Joanie, for our early years in the Brandywine River Valley and in Maine. And for David, for all our years along the Ashokan Way.
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“Although we say that mountains belong to the country,
actually, they belong to those who love them.”
–Master Dōgen
“Each form sets a tone, enables a destiny, strikes a note in the universe unlike any other. How can we ever stop looking?
How can we ever turn away?”
–Mary Oliver
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Also by the Author
Empowerment
The Rhythm of Compassion
Circle of Compassion