Alice McDowell has accepted an offer of publication for her new book, Dance of Light: Christian, Sufi, and Zen Steps to Spiritual Realization, from Wisdom Editions, an imprint of Calumet Editions, to be released in April 2022.

Dance of Light offers practical wisdom for the contemporary spiritual seeker. Whether beginner or advanced, readers will receive guidance on the dynamics of the spiritual journey, learn how to further develop their inner life, and find ways to move forward when unmotivated, stuck, or lost. Teachings of mystics across time and place will inspire readers to stay true to their calling. Instructive tales and humorous stories from each tradition add light and insight to the reader’s journey. Now more than ever, people search for answers to the current uncertainty and confusion.

Alice McDowell, Ph.D., is an author, spiritual director, retreat guide, senior teacher, and founder of the Hidden Treasure Program—a three-year training in personal and spiritual growth. She co-founded Light on the Hill Retreat Center in 1991 where she continues to guide individuals and groups on their spiritual journeys. She is author of Hidden Treasure: How to Break Free of Five Patterns that Hide Your True Self (She Writes Press, 2017). As a professor of religious studies at Ithaca College for eighteen years, she taught courses in mysticism, world religions, depth psychology, and women’s studies, and received the Dana Fellow for Excellence in College Teaching. McDowell has a Ph.D. in theology from Fordham University and has trained with Sufi and Buddhist teachers, Christian contemplatives, and humanistic and transpersonal psychologists. She draws upon her diverse training and life experience to help others awaken to their True Divine Nature. She is a mother of two, the grandmother of four, and lives at Light on the Hill Retreat Center in Van Etten, NY, with her husband and two cats.

In her new book, McDowell writes about the spiritual journey as a captivating dance. Sometimes the steps are easy to follow; other times they become confusing or lost from view. In a clear and compelling voice, McDowell guides the reader through the steps of the dance. Each chapter offers a rich description of one step to spiritual realization and ends with open-ended self-reflective questions for the reader. These steps include experiences of bewilderment, release, renewal, awakening, illumination, darkness, and finally divine union. Calling upon long-forgotten Christian mystics, McDowell situates them alongside contemporary approaches and the traditions of Sufism and Buddhism. Such comparisons help readers come to a greater understanding of the similarities between the sacred teachings of East and West—a needed antidote in this age of division and intolerance.

Calumet Editions publishes authoritative fact-based writing under the Wisdom Editions imprint. Established in 2009 by Ian Graham Leask and Gary Lindberg, Calumet Editions is in Edina, Minnesota.

You can sign up for Alice McDowell’s newsletter to learn more about the release of her new book here.

Writing and Listening — an Interview with Brooke Randel

3 weeks ago

As a young girl Brooke Randel knew little about the Holocaust—just that it was a catastrophe in which millions were murdered, and that her grandma Golda Indig barely escaped that fate. But her Bubbie never spoke about what happened, and the two spent most of their time together making pleasant memories: baking crescent roll cookies, playing gin rummy, and watching Baywatch. Until an unexpected phone call when Golda said, out of the blue: “You should write about my life. What happened in the war.” What results is a fascinating memoir—about one woman’s harrowing survival, and another’s struggle to excavate theRead more…