Barbara Gates, Co-Editor of Inquiring Mind, a Buddhist journal has woven an intricate and warm shawl we can all wrap ourselves in and settle into our homes. She shows what it means to really live in a place, deeply connected to everyone and everything around us.

Already Home: A Topography of Spirit, by Barbara Gates, is a risk-taking work that criss-crosses genres of geology, spirituality, autobiography and history to tell the story of one woman's discovery of "home' in all its dimensions. Spurred by a sense of not being fully at home in her own mortal being, house and community, Gates takes us along as she discovers her Berkeley, California neighborhood in its present and past incarnations. She balances and connects her spiritual travels with concrete adventures down alleyways, through garbages dumps and into the Department of Vital Statistics. Gates' rich prose let me hear the spring hidden by the factory, see the homeless neighbor sleeping in Gate's car and feel the fear and joy of opening your heart.