The Root Flute

About the Book

It was clear that I was supposed to write this book. I started out writing it for my friend Beau Bixler, maker of root flutes. I decided a craft like his deserves a story all its own. But as I wrote, it became clearer and clearer that I wasn’t inventing the story. I was remembering it. I was remembering it from before the beginning of time. The pictures are all drawn from memory. For an old guy, my memory is quite better than I thought it was. It was interesting to learn that God had to be tricked into participating in this creation. God was only marginally involved in the enterprise. Well, that’s only sort of true. I wonder if there’s such a thing as “sort of true.”

About the Author

Michael lives in Sebastopol, California. He’s committed to giving words the space they need to breathe and move around and experience themselves as living things so they can help us with our sense of presence. “The sense of presence is important for peace and for keeping things simple,” he says. “My passion is to keep things simple—to say more and more with less and less until I can say everything with nothing. If you knew how much I want to be a writer when I grow up, it would embarrass me, so I’ll keep that part to myself. I want a world that makes sense to my tender parts—a world whole and at peace with itself and I’m trying to figure out how to do it. I have some ideas.”