Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying

“Death is a thought” begins this dreamlike book from spiritual gurus Dass and Bush that uses a bedside conversation between two close friends to explore death as a journey to oneness. Dass muses on his own impending death (he is 87) while Bush, his longtime friend, sits beside him in Maui. As much about opening up and living with love and curiosity as it is about aging and dying, the book also reprints many familiar passages from Dass’s Be Here Now. Though the overall themes are consistent with that work—live consciously, identify with the soul, forgiveness is everything—Dass and Bush cover new ground by detailing adventures with people such as Tim Leary and Aldous Huxley. They also share stories about their own experiences with friends and family dying, and their ways of exploring death with love and courage. By confronting the idea that death is a mysterious and fearful conclusion to life, Dass and Bush encourage readers to enter the depths of their fears about dying and mortality in order to create more solace in their lives. (Sept.)