"Natalie Goldberg is one of the world s most beloved writing teachers, a mentor who has inspired millions to take up the pen and write. Here, in"The Great Spring," a collection of her best short essays on food, family, writing, painting, meditation, travel, love, loss, death and enlightenment, she follows her own sage counsel, writing her way toward an understanding of what it is to be fully alive." Ruth Ozeki, author of"A Tale for the Time Being ""No one writes about Zen and writing and being human with more honesty, verve, and punch than Natalie Goldberg. Now in the fullness of her"Great Spring," she tells, with more vividness and wisdom than ever before, stories from her life illuminated by the Zen teachings and practice that have informed it. I promise you will be, as I was, enthralled from the first page to the last. This may be her best book yet!" Zoketsu Norman Fischer, author of"Experience"and"What is Zen"""The Great Spring"is a book about writing, about meditating, about traveling, about wondering and wandering, asking essential questions, searching for answers and yielding delightful and pertinent revelations. Only Natalie Goldberg can make this all come together with her patented clear and powerful prose." Lee Gutkind, editor of"Creative Nonfiction"magazine and author of"You Can t Make This Stuff Up: The Complete Guide to Writing Creative Nonfiction, From Memoir to Literary Journalism and Everything in Between" "Goldberg writes observantly, with a direct simplicity. She gently catches your eye while piercing the soul. To read her is to invite your own transformation." Jonathan Odell, author of"Miss Hazel and the Rosa Parks League""At times rhapsodic at others profound, Natalie Goldberg delivers her heart in"The Great Spring." She s courageous to bring us this great ride through her life." David Chadwick, author of"Crooked Cucumber " The Great Spring is a wonderful jaunt through a woman s life. What a solace it is to know there is a smart, stubborn, outspoken human being in the world who is obsessed with figuring it all out. After reading Natalie Goldberg s The Great Spring, I felt a stirring; something curious, nostalgic, and something I d sorely missed: There is hope for all of us. Tom Spanbauer, author of"I Loved You More""

With this TR reissue, Natalie Golderg--the woman who changed the way writing is taught in this country--will access an even larger audience to share the experiences that have opened her to new ways of being alive. Drawing from her years of writing, teaching, and practicing Zen, Goldberg shows us what it takes to maintain a long writing life. The "great spring" of this book title refers to the great rush of energy that arrives when you think no life will ever come again--the early yellow flowering forsythia, for example. It also refers to enlightenment: obstructions shatter, pain cracks open, previously resisted truth releases, an acceptance of transiency flows through. Natalie Goldberg shares the moments that have sprung from her own life of writing, teaching, and Zen practice--moments of searching, wandering, zigzagging, losing, and leaping where she has found herself and her voice. In these pages, we watch as Natalie "makes positive effort for the good"--one of the guiding rules of her writing life--and we see that if we can stay attentive in our lives, even in the middle of the ruins, "we can hear the sound of a songbird in a Paris chestnut tree." Whether we know if the song comes from inside us or out doesn't matter. Thirteen of the twenty-two essays in the book have been previously published (often in a different form). Those publications include"Yoga Journal, Lion's Roar, Five Points, "and"Creative Nonfiction.""