In A Hidden Wholeness, Parker Palmer reveals the same compassionate intelligence and informed heart that shaped his best-selling books Let Your Life Speak and The Courage to Teach. Here he speaks to our yearning to live undivided lives-lives that are congruent with our inner truth-in a world filled with the forces of fragmentation. Mapping an inner journey that we take in solitude and in the company of others, Palmer describes a form of community that fits the limits of our active lives. Defining a "circle of trust" as "a space between us that honors the soul," he shows how people in settings ranging from friendship to organizational life can support each other on the journey toward living "divided no more." This paperback edition includes two new and useful features. Circles of Trust is a DVD containing interviews with Parker J. Palmer and footage from retreats he facilitated for the Center for Courage & Renewal (www.CourageRenewal.org). Bringing the Book to Life, by Caryl Hurtig Casbon and Sally Z. Hare, is a reader's and leader's guide to exploring the themes in A Hidden Wholeness. The DVD illuminates and illustrates the principles and practices behind circles of trust. The guide includes questions that connect the DVD to the book, offering "a conversation with the author" as well as an engagement with the text. Together, these features give readers new ways to internalize the themes of A Hidden Wholeness and share with others this approach to sustaining identity and integrity in all the venues of our lives. Inspired by Palmer's writing and speaking-and challenged by the conditions of twenty-first century life-people across the country, from many walks of life, have been coming together in circles of trust to reclaim their integrity and help foster wholeness in their workplaces and their world. For over a decade, the principles and practices in this book have been proven on the ground-by parents and educators, clergy and politicians, community organizers and corporate executives, physicians and attorneys, and many others who seek to rejoin soul and role in their private and public lives. A Hidden Wholeness weaves together four themes that its author has pursued for forty years: the shape of an integral life, the meaning of community, teaching and learning for transformation, and nonviolent social change. The hundreds of thousands of people who know Parker Palmer's books will be glad to find the journey continued

Table of Contents

Gratitudes. Prelude: The Blizzard of the World. I Images of Integrity: Living "Divided No More" . II Across the Great Divide: Rejoining Soul and Role. III Explorations in True Self: Intimations of the Soul. IV Being Alone Together: A Community of Solitudes. V Preparing for the Journey: Creating Circles of Trust. VI The Truth Told Slant: The Power of Metaphor. VII Deep Speaks to Deep: Learning to Speak and Listen. VIII Living the Questions: Experiments with Truth. IX On Laughter and Silence: Not-So-Strange Bedfellows. X The Third Way: Nonviolence in Everyday Life. Notes. The Author. Index.

Reviews

Palmer (The Courage to Teach) seeks to help us "rejoin soul and role," so that individuals and communities can be healed from the ravages of consumerism, injustice and violence. No small task, yet in classic Palmer style, this mission is fleshed out with stories, poems, personal confessions and a plan-concrete steps for creating "circles of trust" where honest, open sharing allows each person's "inner teacher" to show up. (Ground rules: "no fixing, no saving, no advising, no setting each other straight.") Palmer's concern is that too many people have "divided lives," with personal values that don't match what they are asked to do in the world to succeed. He argues that "the soul is real and powerful" and is "safe only in relationships with certain qualities," ones that "protect, border and salute" the time it takes to hear our "inner teacher." Never na?ve, Palmer warns that these "circles of trust" are not management tools that organizations can force on employees for some grand motive, such as crisis control or increased productivity. They are the opposite of quick fixes-places where we sit and wait for our souls to tell the truth. This book is a treasure-an inspiring, useful blueprint for building safe places where people can commit to "act in every situation in ways that honor the soul." 50,000 first printing. (Sept.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

"NEW TO THIS EDITION: Circles of Trust DVD containing interviews with Parker J. Palmer and Bringing the Book to Life, by Caryl Hurtig Casbon and Sally Z. Hare, a reader's and leader's guide."