The art of living well is largely determined by how we walk “the landscape of our soul:” how we navigate life’s challenges, make choices, address setbacks, take action, and deal with the consequences of our actions. It is about how we stake a claim in our own lives and cultivate the world within us as we interact with the world outside of us. This book is my attempt to create a map for navigating this landscape and how we can explore, discover, and embrace the full richness of our being. It is about how we can come to terms with the fact that the “I,” that is the ego consciousness, is not the “ruler of the land,” but is a crucial presence in a community of sentience that, literally, “makes up” our lives. The key to living well is found in the heart of communion with the life within and around you.

One of the most compelling ideas of the human psyche is the idea of a new world. It seems an almost universal craving to go outside of the borders in which we live. It manifests in the simple desire to discover what is over the hill or around the bend or beyond the horizon. We have explored just about every inch of the planet, climbed mountain peaks, burrowed into cavernous depths, dived in submersibles to the oceanic floor, and even fired ourselves in rockets to the moon. We have created millions of alternate realities, separate worlds that we love to enter, in games, books and movies, and in our own culture through rites, rituals, customs and laws. But strangely, we know very little about the country inside of ourselves.

Here is a video introduction to the book:

An excerpt from the book:
An Invitation: For Your Eyes Only

Imagine you found, tucked into your pocket, a folded note, dated today, the words “for your eyes only” on the outer fold, written by your own hand in the uncanny ink of deja vu, and you felt, in that moment, snaking up your spine, a hair-raising shiver of deep knowing that you have lived this all before. Would your heart race with dread and anticipation at the message you crafted for yourself, wondering: Is it a warning? An invitation? A grief? A gift? Would your mind wander back to those days when you felt anxious at the letterbox, hesitant at the ring, because you lived your life waiting for the other shoe to drop?  

Or would you feel swept up into a realm of wonder, like the child you once were, bursting with unimaginable joy and the can’t-wait eagerness to rip open a wrapped gift or walk through the Disney gates into a magical adventure. And this little note, held in your hands, holds the keys to the moment, opens a portal to the dream gate you have always wished to find, offers you a ticket to a secret destination. Like all good wish crafters, deep down, you know, it lives within you. You know what you will get rises from your own depths. So, take all the time you need to set your house in order, to list the things you love, knowing there is no allowance for baggage because you can only take what you can carry on in your heart. 

This is your ticket to the undiscovered country: to the wonderland within you, where you enter the secret chamber of your desire, look into the window on the magic land of your becoming, step through the doorway onto the ground of your belonging. You are about to immerse yourself in the poetry of life, flooded with new memories as if you have always lived free. Looking back, you see all your joys and sorrows, all your suffering and celebrating as chords in a song of haunting allure and mystic dazzle, your life set to music, your body indulging in every nuanced sensation with rapture. You hold all of this and more in your hands, tucked in the folds of a note tagged “for your eyes only” because you know that what you see is what you get and every story you tell expresses the heart in the telling.  Now, you can begin to apprentice yourself to the telling, and the untelling, of the deep stories that you live by…

© Nick LeForce, All Rights Reserved

Join Larry Dillenbeck for a series of short interviews with Nick LeForce, including select readings of poetry and prose.  Each reading will be based on a different quadrant from a map of the archetypal journey described in the book, as follows:

Jun 7--Session 1: Widening Your Embrace Of Yourself
Jun 14--Session 2: Deepening Your Roots In Life
Jun 21--Session 3: Broadening Your Horizon Of Possibilities
Jun 28--Session 4: Extending The Reach Of Your Heart Into The World

Sunday mornings at
9 AM PST; 12 Pm EST; 4 PM GMT

Register in advance for this meeting:

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

I Can Only Imagine

I can only imagine what my stolen eyes
would see without artificial light. 

Or how wide a net my heart 
would cast for safety. 

But what mostly bends my knee 
is the extreme improbability of it all. 

So, I welcome the night 
as an open ear for prayer. 

I have two: one for the blessing of protection 
and another for the blessing of fortune. 

I’ve already painted my walls with answers 
while fasting in the desert of solitude. 

I’ve already unlearned
a catalogue of old ways. 

I’ve already transferred my shadow-crafts 
and shapeshifting skills into a worldly presence. 

Now, the whispered voice tells me to follow 
a greater calling than my own salvation. 

Upon returning, I never expected a red carpet 
or flowers to blossom under my feet; 

only to live in the heartland 
of my own undiscovered country 

and, now, to invite you to yours.