In over 30 short stories, Jim Bowers explores with courage and honesty the nature of the human heart. He plunges deep into the psyche, confronts the beast within, and emerges with redemption, hope, and a bittersweet understanding of the meaning of life. His stories touch on human frailties and anguish, the complexities of relationships, the power of faith and the spirit, on good and evil itself. They are disturbing or uplifting--sometimes together--and they challenge...

Prologue I am sitting in my chair in the cabin built by my own hands, looking at the stream flowing through my property, with my feet elevated, piles of newspapers and my dog at my side. It is not that I am lazy. I'm retired, and retirement means not doing whatever I do not care to do, not talking with people I do not find interesting, not being anything other than what I want to be. It is the ultimate in freedom, just to be myself: no more games to play, no role to ...

Henrik Ibsen told his readers if they were to understand his work, they should read all his dramas and live them in their person experience. Little has been published about his first plays. This book covers dramas from "Cataline" to "Peer Gynt," and demonstrates how "The Master Builder," "Hedda Gabler" and "The Lady from the Sea" are related to archetypal themes of his youthful work. The thesis is that Ibsen was a creator of myths. Using the psychology of Carl Jung, ...

Fifty years ago I began my graduate studies in order to become a professor of English. Among the requirements for the master's degree was the necessity of writing a thesis. I chose as a topic "Henrik Ibsen and Nordic Myth." There were several reasons for choosing that topic. As an undergraduate I had taken a course with Philip Wheelwright based upon his manuscript of "The Burning Fountain" and became interested in mythology. I subsequently spent a year at a Danish f...