Habitasse © Curabitur felis erat. Mauris di Serif. Vestibulum | Sed vulputate

but I have only these words …

and when I am done

melt into earth  stars  sun

they remain

for a while

for a few

in the oceans of words

that prevail

my epitaph made

Mandala: Way-Wending

Dustman, poet, social worker, minister of religion – Steve has seen it all. And he’s weaved it all into the pages of Mandala: Way-Wending…

Partly autobiographical, partly allegorical, partly fictional, partly ‘road movie’, Mandala: Way-Wending is a distillation of Steve’s life experience and his view of what it means to be a human being living in the world as we all experience it.

The book cover shows a Mandala (painted by Steve, seen here on the right) – traditionally a geometric configuration of symbols representing the universe – and it is the image that graphically tells the story of the book.

Then  Now Whenever

Here There Wherever

Wending the Way

The central character is Tom, who is unsure about himself and unsure about what his life really means to him. So he decides to set off on a journey to find out what it does all mean. That journey - with all its twists and turns, highs and lows, successes and failures – leads him to understand much, much more about himself and about the world around, about and within him.

Steve takes Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ as a starting point, placing Tom on a similar allegorical journey to Pilgrim through the world, but lifts it out of the seventeenth century and places it firmly into the twenty-first century.

Tom’s journey engages him with the rich panoply of life. It takes him to places almost beyond his imagination – from Van City, with every pleasure you could want, to the Back of Beyond, where he is mentally and physically challenged to the point of desperation.  On his journey, in the company of Hope (with him for some of the time), he also meets a broad range of characters who make him question almost every idea and belief he has ever held.

Steve is a broad and deep thinker, so ’Mandala’ weaves in issues relating to the environment, genetics, evolution, politics, religion, cosmology and even the very existence of God in the age of quantum mechanics. It is definitely a story for our time, with implications for us all that stretch far beyond.

Click Play button to hear Steve reading an extract…

Buy the Book

To purchase your copy of ‘Mandala’ for £7.75 (plus £2.75 p&p), simply click on the link below:

Paperback: 320 pages

Publisher: Harwood, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-908045-02-7

Dimensions: 234 x 156mm