Description About the Author Simon Parke was a priest in the Church of England for twenty years, before leaving for fresh adventures. He worked for three years in a supermarket, stacking shelves and working on the till. He was also chair of the shop union. He has since left to go free lance and now writes, leads retreats and offers consultancy. He is also director of the mental health project, Pictures of Eden. He has written for The Independent and The Evening Standard and is currently a columnist with the Daily Mail. His weekly supermarket diary, Shelf Life, ran for 15 months in the Mail on Saturday, and he now contributes another weekly column called One-Minute Mystic. The Beautiful Life - re-issued as The Journey Home - was published by Bloomsbury in 2007. Simon has led a number of retreats around this book and speaks about it on his site. The book version of Shelf Life was published by Rider in 2009. The book version of One-Minute Mystic was published by Hay House early in 2010 and One-Minute Mindfulness followed in 2011, which has helped many into an understanding of this life-enhancing practice. Other books by Simon include Forsaking the Family, which is a refreshingly real and rather shocking look at the sacred cow of family life. This book has now been re-issued by White Crow. Simon has been a teacher of the Enneagram for 20 years. The enneagram is an ancient path of self-understanding and Simon's book on the