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Greetings, Heather here. We’ve received quite a number of e-mails via our woefully out-of-date website. Thanks to all who have written, though we have scant time to respond quickly or individually. Many of the messages asked about our books and the process of writing, so I asked Michael to comment.

“I suppose the bottom line is this: It is the moral import that counts in every art; of what use is word or sound or form if it does not seek greater recognitions and acceptance of a clarifying, healing, ennobling or empowering thought? To write three pages about, say, the wind blowing through the trees, is to show a plebeian verbosity; the true artist must not so much think for the reader as to lure him or her into active thought; he must seek and find a fresh perception that will inspire thought and feeling; each phrase must be a quiet record of one moment’s inspiration and insight. For those who aspire to write, please know that it is impossible to fully transform experiences, much like art or music, into words, for they move in a world beyond logic or intellect."

“Some of your messages regarding our books have been overly complimentary; they credit where credit is due, but credit too much. The work is scarcely mine alone. The more recent manuscripts would not exist without Amber and Heather. They are my bond and catalyst; they inspire me with their praise and eager listening; challenge me with the keenness and depth of their perceptions; and unite us by bringing pleasure and charm and love to every passing day and night, often exciting feelings analogous to the supernatural by awakening my attention to the lethargy of custom and directing it rather to the loveliness and wonders of the world around me. I embrace the grace, disturbance and stimulation that their beauty, spirit and charm lends to any of life’s conditions and events. As my dear friend Sherpa Jampla once said: ‘Against great beauty, the only defense is love.’”

“Regarding the many questions about the knowledge expressed in our books, be aware. Whoever goes in search of anything must come eventually to this: Either to say that he has found it, or that it cannot be found, or that he is still upon the search. All philosophy is divided into these three kinds; her design is to seek out truth, knowledge, and certainty. The Peripatetics, Epicureans, Stoics, and others, thought that they had found truth. They established the sciences we have, and treated them as certain knowledge. Clitomachus, Carneades, and the Academics despaired in their search, and concluded that truth could not be reached through our intellect. The result of this was weakness and human ignorance. Pyrrho, and other skeptics or epechists — whose doctrines were said to be taken from Homer, the Seven Sages, Archilochus and Euripides, and to whose number were added Zeno, Democritus, and Xenophanes — said that they were yet upon the search after truth; they judged that those who though they had found it were deceived, yet that it was too daring a vanity to say that human reason is not able to attain truth. The matter of establishing the extent of our power to know and judge things is a great and extreme knowledge, of which they believed that man is capable. I agree.”

    Nil sciri quisquis putat, id quoque nescit,

    An sciri possit; quam se nil scire fatetur.

   ("He that says nothing can be known, o'erthrows

    His own opinion, for he nothing knows,

    So knows not that.") 

Cheers to all, Heather and Amber