Once again, Jean Shinoda Bolen has gifted us with her rich understanding of the human condition. In this book, she explores the psychological and spiritual value of death, profound loss, and illness without in any way minimizing the pain, angusih, and grief that come with these times in our loves. Bolen's book gives us a way to grapple with these passages on a deep spiritual, personal level, without turning to religious platitudes or what, for many, may feel like true-believer gloss overs. Instead, dying, illness, and loss are presented as psychological as well as physical events that resonate with rich personal and spiritual meaning and transformation, if we can allow them to do this. A wonderful book! This book is unlike any other I have read. The author is a Jungian analyst and clinical professor of psychiatry. To quote the book jacket, she "weaves myth, experience, and story to produce a book which at once illuminates the experience of the seriously ill patient and shows that facing one's mortality can be a life-transforming, and even a life-saving process". At a time when I was recovering from life-threatening illness myself, I heard the author speak at a lecture in Vancouver, and I found her use of classical myth as an allegory for illness to be quite effective. My friend Russell borrowed this book from me a few weeks before he died from cancer, and in a written note he described it as "the right book at the right time". Early in