For centuries the Tao Te Ching, the book of ancient wisdom by Lao Tsu, has offered insight, inspiration and consolation to millions of readers. Although numberless translations and commentaries exist around the world, Return to the Mother, A Lover's Handbook, is a groundbreaking effort and a unique contribution to the canon of American poetry. In this volume, internationally known poet Red Hawk offers what no other poet has yet undertakeneŽ¯that is, to write poetic reflections on these much-loved ancient sutras. This collection of 94 contemporary poem (each 16-lines), brings this perennial wisdom into the twenty-first century–and adds the flavor and fragrance of Zen and Gurdjieff's dharma teachings in a spare poetic marriage with Lao Tsu. Further, each poem invites the reader into the application of this wisdom to his or her daily practice of self observation and self remembering. The poet begs for a return to the true self, which he symbolizes as the place of the Mother within. No lengthy discursive explanations are offered, however, only exquisite lines that pierce to the heart of human longing for truth. Our Mother has no words, She is Silence, She is the present, here- now. To be here-now, in this body, is to return to Our Mother, relaxed, soft, open, receptive: kind. Kindness is the nature of Our Mother, Non-Judgmental Love is Her Being, and we are Her children, made in Her image. This volume is a companion and completion to the author's two previous volumes Self Observation: The Awakening of Conscience. An Owner's Manual; and Self Remembering: The Path to Non-Judgmental Love. A Practitioner's Manual. Taken together, these three volumes form a trilogy, which examines the spiritual practice of self remembering/self observation. The author writes from long personal study and experience. His years of discipleship within religious schools of esoteric knowledge, allows him to share what has been gained and lost from following a Path. The inner struggles of this type of work on self are rendered with raw precision, while being beautifully delineated in these poems. Any reader will benefit from the fruits of understanding the poet has gained from these struggles. Red Hawk was the Hodder Fellow at Princeton University (1992-93) and currently a tenured professor of English at U. of Arkansas, Monticello. He is the author of 9 previous books. His book Self Observation has been published in 10 languages. His poetry has been published in The Atlantic, Poetry, and Kenyon Review, and others journals. He has been a member of a Gurdjieff group for 36 years, a student of Mister Lee Lozowick's for 22 years, a disciple of Master Osho Rajneesh for 16 years prior, and always a devotee of the great spiritual master Yogi Ramsuratkumar. "The name that can be named is not the eternal name." (Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, 1. ii) By naming we are cast out of the garden, we lose our innocence; naming is eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil; it creates the fatal dichotomy: namer and named, this and that, I and thou, like and dislike, good and evil; all judgment is born of naming. Naming is the mind's strategy to avoid relationship; it is a recoil into fear. The present is unnamable: neither this nor that. Some land is too wild to be named. ~~~ "All under heaven have a common beginning. This beginning is the Mother of the world." (Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, 52) All of us have the same Mother, therefore we are all brothers and sisters, only one race, the Human race, all one family. But this is cliche, we have all heard this from the TV preachers before they ask us to send money. What good do such words do? Our Mother has no words, She is Silence, She is the present, here- now. To be here-now, in this body, is to return to Our Mother, relaxed, soft, open, receptive: kind. Kindness is the nature of Our Mother, Non-Judgmental Love is Her Being, and we are Her children, made in Her image.