Kirjahaku

This is an unusual and entertaining travel book - with a message or two. The author has travelled extensively on business in Asia, Africa, South America and the Middle East and he relates his extraordinary experiences with page-turning descriptions. He worked for the British Tourist Authority, he established his own international education consultancy and his insightful narratives come from his continuing worldwide travel on behalf of a range of UK boarding schools, colleges and charities. His advice on education has been sought by Russian billionaires, Saudi sheikhs and members of the Thai royal family. He has been faced with life-threatening experiences in two continents and endured wrongful imprisonment in Greece. Along the way, he ventured into religious retreats, spiritual experiences in India and pilgrim walks in Spain - finding a new meaning to his life which led him to raise over 50,000 for charitable causes including a school for 'children from the dumps' in Cambodia. The descriptions of his 'enlightenment' are equally colourful and he is often critical of those who are 'religious but not spiritual'.

Bless the Ashes is an urban hymn to elemental influences: Peter Harris's mother and the reverberations of the ethical gifts she gave him during her fifty-seven years on earth; the integrity at the core of cultures crafted under duress by people of African descent; the nourishment of waters, actual and symbolic; powerful music (from the One and 4/4 to symphonic and atonal); as well as the exhilaration of tapping the flow of creativity. These poems are about an adult search for deep humanity and the best of community. This book crystallizes Harris's most expansive quest for a creative voice of individuality and inspiration. With Bless the Ashes, he uses words to blend the imaginative, emotional, and intellectual to get beyond words and into a visceral field that should move anyone participating fully into their human journey.