Illusions, delusions, or faulty beliefs prevent us from seeing clearly and acknowledging what we truly are ... beyond personality and even beyond individuality. In sharing the simple facts of his life experience, Art Ticknor takes us on an extraordinary journey, which hopes "to inspire another with a possibly unimagined possibility, and to encourage another to persevere." With a natural storyteller's voice and conversational style that draws the reader in and pulls us gently along, he conveys his view that the journey beyond the mind, to the solid ground of being, will bring full satisfaction to life.

A lively, topical guide on how to respond to life’s inevitable difficulties—from personal crises to broader societal challenges The issue of difficulty in life is at the very essence of Buddhism. One can reasonably translate the first noble truth as, “life is full of difficulties,” with the remaining noble truths serving as Buddhism’s analysis of those difficulties and how to work with them. In Solid Ground, celebrated Buddhist teachers Sylvia Boorstein, Zoketsu Norman Fisher, and Tsoknyi Rinpoche use their diverse wisdom to address the immediate and practical concerns of our lives, including individual crises as well as the political, economic, and social challenges society is currently facing. Together, they explore the most basic and profound questions of Buddhism: the difficulty of life in general and how we can work with that and ameliorate it. Filled with humor and personal stories, Solid Ground offers specific teachings for concrete situations as well as a way to explore the larger questions of finding equanimity in difficult times.

If only Robert McNamara had known the Law of Solid Ground, the War in Vietnam, and everything that happened at home because of it, might have turned out differently.

Originally published: Lincoln: Nebraska Book Pub., c1996.

Two sisters reckon with their toxic parents through the decline and death of their outlandishly tyrannical mother and with the care of their psychologically terrorized father, all relayed with dark humor and brutal honesty in this award-winning “brilliantly-written memoir... [that] reads like a novel” (best-selling author Margaret Atwood via Twitter). When her elderly mother is hospitalized unexpectedly, Vicki Laveau-Harvie and her sister travel to their parents' ranch home in Alberta, Canada, to help their father. Estranged from their parents for many years, they are horrified by what they discover on their arrival. For years their mother has camouflaged her manic delusions and savage unpredictability, and over the decades she has managed to shut herself and her husband away from the outside world, systematically starving him and making him a virtual prisoner in his own home. Rearranging their lives to be the daughters they were never allowed to be, the sisters focus their efforts on helping their father cope with the unending manipulations of their mother and encounter all the pressures that come with caring for elderly parents. And at every step they have to contend with their mother, whose favorite phrase during their childhood was: "I'll get you and you won't even know I'm doing it." Set against the natural world of the Canadian foothills ("in winter the cold will kill you, nothing personal"), this memoir—at once dark and hopeful—shatters precedents about grief, anger, and family trauma with surprising tenderness and humor.

As a nation faces civil war and slavery is on the risk of collapse, a mountain community must make difficult choices; ones that involve life or death. Ones that risk shattering the bonds between family and friends.North Carolina secedes from the United States of America the same day Transylvania County is formed. It is the same day Robert Hamilton is appointed as its first sheriff.? Many in the community share Robert's opposition to slavery and his public plea to avoid secession, but the call to fight for, and support, the South is louder and clearly expected. Robert must find a way to uphold his oath as sheriff and be true to his conscience, even if it means bending the rules. Yet, he cannot do this alone. Calling on a few close friends and family, Robert hopes to avoid discovery, but there is a problem. Elizabeth Neill, the daughter of his deputy, pursues her interest in a Confederate soldier and harbors a growing suspicion that the Sheriff and his family have secrets. At the same time, her friendship with Pink, a young slave, challenges her naïve perspective on slavery.? As the war rages, the newly-formed county must decide how to confront hunger and ruthless bushwhackers, neither of which honor Union nor Confederate loyalty.? Based on real people and real events,? To Stand on Solid Ground? brings to life an unusual relationship between Confederate loyalists and Union sympathizers.The story is a deeply human take on the Civil War and the multiple battlefronts that challenged this mountain county and its people; struggles which our nation still faces today.? To Stand on Solid Ground? does more than merely report historical events; it transports the reader back in time to face the profound need to support each other in a time of intense polarity.? It offers insight and hope fitting to our current political divide.

Teaching on Solid Ground gives practitioners more complete understanding of students and learning. It presents new ways of thinking about instruction, and it explores the issues - including faculty motivation and quality of teaching - that demand faculty attention at the institutional and professional level. Underlying Teaching on Solid Ground is the critical premise that educational researchers and teachers must become partners in the ongoing task of teaching improvement.