A year to live: how to live this year as if it were your last

Citation preview

Praise for

A

Year

to

"Stephen's work restores the heart and clears the mind-it offers an opening which even death cannot close." Elisabeth Kubler-Ross "Stephen cradles y our heart with tenderness and places the lamp of truth in your hand. A wise and beautiful gift to all who Jack Kornfield

would live well."

"For each of us, Stephen Levine's book, with its subtle beauty and honesty, offers wise and grounded lessons. For our society, obsessed with a wide-ranging struggle against mortality, this remarkable book steers us toward an earthiness and humility necessary for a full life. Few books are worthy to be lifelong companions-this is one of them."

Thomas Moore

"Stephen Levine offers us a profound guide for savoring life." Daniel Goleman "A Year to Live is a poetic and deeply passionate exploration into

what creates human suffering. It is also a lyrical and generous­ spirited guide to life." Beth Witrogen Mcleod, San Francisco Examiner "Stephen Levine has written what may be the ultimate how-to book."

Peggy Randall, NAPRA Review

ALSO BY STEPHEN LEVINE

Grist for the Mill (with Ram Dass) A Gradual Awakening Who Dies? Meetings at the Edge Healing into Life and Death Guided Meditations, Explorations and Healings Embracing the Beloved (with Ondrea Levine)

A to

Live

HOW TO LIVE THIS YEAR AS IF IT WERE YOUR LAST

STEPHEN LEVINE

BELL TOWER

A

NEW

YORK

Copyright C> 1997 by Stephen Levine Grateful acknowledgment is made to Beacon Press, Boston, for permission to reprint material from T he Kabir Book by Robert Bly. Copyright«:> 1971, 1977 by Robert Bly. Copyright © 1977 by T he Seventies Press. Reprinted by permission of Beacon Press, Boston. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy­ ing, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Published by Bell Tower, New York, New York. Member of the Crown Publishing Group. Random House, Inc. New York, Toronto, London, Sydney, Auckland www.randomhouse.com Bell Tower and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. Originally published in hardcover by Bell Tower in 1997. Printed in the United States of America Design by Barbara Balch Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Levine, Stephen, 1937A year to live : how to live this year as if it were your lasV Stephen Levine.-1st ed. p.

em.

1. Self-actualization (Psychology). 3. Death-Psychological aspects.

2. Spiritual life.

4. Terminally ill-Psychology.

I. T itle BF637.S4L485

1997

170' .44---0. 0 u

Stephen Levine is a poet and teacher of guided meditation and healing techniques that have found widespread application over the last twenty years. His best-selling books in the United States and Europe (including Who Dies7, Healing into Life and

Death, A Gradual Awakening, and with his wife and spiritual part­ ner, Ondrea, Embracing the Beloved) are considered groundbreak­ ing in their field. Many of the meditations and techniques suggested in this book are available on audiotape from: Warm Rock Tapes P.O. Box 108 Chamisal, NM 87521 1-800-731-HEAL