"Rare Birds" is a collection of conversations with world-class jazz musicians and classical composers, featuring luminaries Philip Glass, Charles Lloyd, Abdullah Ibrahim, Steve Reich, Eugene Friesen, and Sathima Bea Benjamin. These in-depth, candid interviews focus not only on the music but also on the artists.

The six interviews, conducted by poet and author Thomas Rain Crowe and musician Nan Watkins, delve into the creative process, individual as well as global perspectives on the arts, the human condition, and various personal issues that are addressed in the music itself. These cutting-edge artists have singular ideas about what it means to be a composer and musician.

An important addition to the documentation of modern jazz musicians and composers, "Rare Birds" will appeal to anyone who is interested in jazz music or the contemporary classical canon.

Poetry. IN WINESELLER'S STREET is about hope. About a world seen through eyes that don't idolize individualism and separation. It reflects the human potential of living in a world of harmony and grace. No poet and no tradition does this better than Hafez. During a time of international political and religious chaos and violence, perhaps no other work is more essential to our survival and recovery. Here, Hafez is accessible, and in his accessibility, concise. Always the humble teacher, Hafez sits with us on the barstool in the town pub like a mirror, reflecting back our dreams.

Recovering a Sense of the Sacred: Conversations with Thomas Berry is a thoughtful and poignant memoir by Carolyn W. Toben recounting her spiritual journey with renowned scholar, author and cultural historian, Thomas Berry. For ten years, Carolyn spent many hours in deep discussions with Thomas Berry about his transformational thinking for healing the human-earth relationship through recovery of a sense of the sacred. This book is based on her personal notes, practices and reflections from these conversations.
"Recovering a Sense of the Sacred is a poignant and intimate portrait that reveals deep insights into the work of the great contemporary mystic-sage, Thomas Berry. Even more than this, at this time of "historic confusion," this tender story provides a profound interior activation; it calls us toward another way of knowing that is essential for new levels of understanding. Reverent and real, this wonderful work provides gracious and wise companionship for a life of the sacred." -Tobin Hart, Ph.D., author of The Secret Spiritual World of Children
"Carolyn Toben has given us a true gift Recovering a Sense of the Sacred carries the reader to the heart of his/her deepest identity as a sacred being in a sacred planet in a sacred universe. Those who knew Thomas will find themselves right there in the midst of the conversations, listening in, smiling, bathed again in the warmth of his remarkable presence. For those who are new to Thomas or his work, this book is an excellent introduction to his comprehensive thought and wisdom, for here it reaches us through a sense of his person-his own deep sense of the sacred in every being, his reverence, hospitality and friendship." -Mary Southard, CSJ, artist and creator of the Earth Calendar
"No thinker in the twentieth or twenty-first century has provided us with as much inspiration and guidance about the relationship between humans and the natural world as Thomas Berry. Carolyn Toben's very personal and eloquent book offers us an opportunity to sit with Thomas and absorb his special wisdom." -Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods
"In this inspired book, Carolyn Toben chronicles her extended conversations with the noted theologian and philosopher, Thomas Berry. What she has achieved is not only a passionate homage to a great thinker and visionary, but a personal and moving statement of our human responsibility to access the depth of our consciousness in relation to all that exists around us." -Richard Lewis, author of Living By Wonder: The Imaginative Life of Childhood
"This book is an exquisite gift for those of us familiar with Thomas Berry's writings and for those still new to his work. For here we meet the man himself in the context of an evolving relationship where, in different settings and moments over the last decade of his life, he shares his vision of a living universe and the immensity of meanings it holds for him. And here, in between their conversations, Carolyn Toben explores how his message is altering her own perceptions of the natural world and of herself. Their warm-hearted companionship invites us in as well, to come alive to the creative mutuality at the heart of all that is." -Joanna Macy, author of World as Lover, World as Self
"A fascinating and moving portrait of one of the Great Teachers of our time. I am deeply grateful for this lyrical and lucid memoir, which captures Thomas Berry's vision, his graciousness, his deep communion with the earth and its beings, and the implications of his work for the future. Skillfully transmitting his wisdom and presence, Carolyn Toben's encounter with the cosmology of Berry is a blessing for the entire planet." -Drew Dellinger, author of Love Letter to the Milky Way

After a long absence from his native southern Appalachians, Thomas Rain Crowe returned to live alone deep in the North Carolina woods. This is Crowe's chronicle of that time when, for four years, he survived by his own hand without electricity, plumbing, modern-day transportation, or regular income. It is a Walden for today, paced to nature's rhythms and cycles and filled with a wisdom one gains only through the pursuit of a consciously simple, spiritual, environmentally responsible life. Crowe writes of many things: digging a root cellar, being a good listener, gathering wood, living in the moment, tending a mountain garden. He explores profound questions on wilderness, self-sufficiency, urban growth, and ecological overload. Yet, we are never burdened by their weight but rather enriched by his thoughtfulness and delighted by his storytelling.

The Persian Sufi poet Hafiz (1326-1390) is a towering figure in Islamic literature--and in spiritual attainment as well. Known for his profound mystical wisdom combined with a sublime sensuousness, Hafiz was the supreme master of a poetic form known as the "ghazal" (pronounced "guzzle"), an ode or song consisting of rhymed couplets celebrating divine love. In this selection of his poems, wine and the intoxication it brings are the image that expresses this love in all its joyful abandon, painful longing, bewilderment, and surrender. Through ninety-five free-verse renditions, we gain entry into the mystical world of Hafiz's Winehouse, with its happy minstrels, its bewitching Winebringer, and its companions in drunken longing whose hearts cry out, "More wine " Thomas Rain Crowe brings a new dimension to our growing appreciation of Hafiz and his wise drunkard's advice to the seekers of God:

In this world of illusion, take nothing other than this cup of wine;
In this playhouse, don't play any games but love.