Books by Dr Ralph Steele

Tending the Fire: Through War and The Path of Meditation Raised on a South Carolina sea island, tempered by experiences in the Vietnam War, and trained as a psychotherapist, Ralph Steele decided midlife that tending the fire of his life would be to take robes as a forest monk in Thailand and Myanmar-for a year or for a lifetime. He left his career and twenty-year relationship without knowing if he would return. Tending the Fire is the gripping, enlightening, and very human story of Ralph's transformative journey through war and meditation to a sense of wholeness, responsibility, peace, and compassion. Partial Endorsements: "Ralph Steele's memoir will be of great value, an inspiration for many who are seeking release from ignorance and suffering" Ajahn Sumedho "A beautifully written, humbling, uplifting, and profoundly sweet and electrifying life story illustrating the transformative value of the cultivation of mindfulness . . ." Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness "One can't help but marvel at Ralph Steele's extraordinary life." Joseph Goldstein, author of Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening "Buddha was a Kshatriya; he came from the warrior class, Ralph, too is a warrior who, like Buddha, had to climb the walls of his enclosures to breathe the fresh air." Stephen and Ondrea Levine, authors of Becoming Kuan Yin: The Evolution of Compassion and The Healing I Took Birth For "Ralph is able to show us, in an unflinchingly graphic story, what is at once intimate and honest, heart-shredding and tender." Wayne Muller, M. Div., author of Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives "Ralph Steele's Tending the Fire offers a glimpse into worlds few of us will ever experience-and yet the humanity he shares with us is something we all can resonate with." Alexandra Kennedy, M.A., LMFT, author of Losing A Parent: Passage to a New Way of Living and Creating a Space to Let Yourself Heal

John Crowell Businessman, Tuscaloosa, Al Dr. Steele's book is an amazing perspective on how mediation and law collectively can help parties resolve simple and complex legal disputes. His book using the theory of facts, issues, options & solutions lends mediators the best of legal method to develop their mediation case theory in managing the dynamics of mediation cases that has clogged our judicial court system. Now the American people have a definite alternative to collaborate and resolve their legal case with the assistance of an impartial third party. This book also is excellent for everyday people in resolving common mutual issues that divide people rather than bring unity and community. Facts, Issues, Options & Solutions will have an indelible impact on civil discourse in America. Dr. Brenda Stanton Deener Nurse Practitioner, Memphis, Tenn This is an excellent book written by Dr. Steele. Mediation and is indeed a form of law that even common citizens can come to the table with the assistance of a mediator to facilitate and evaluate both parties facts and issues. The decisions that both of them make they can live with and at the end of the day resolve to an agreement that is worthy of their signatures and is enforceable in a court of law. This book heralds a mediation perspective that pre-mediation and early assessment of the legal issues, communications issues, the financial issues, and the psychosocial issues can collaboratively be resolved into a mediation settlement agreement with the same legal basis of a court trial because it's an agreement between two or more parties who made them with sound mind and body.