Preface by Simon Peter Hemingway

This book is the result of many hours of interviews with Ken Page, archival materials, my own experiences as a student-practitioner of MCH™, and the divine flow of the universe. This project was first initiated by Shirley Holly, who contributed several drafts before retiring to pursue the writing of her own life. Although this work is original to Ken and I, Shirley's hard work contributed to its final shape and form.

Shortly after I began work on this project, I realized that its success was ultimately dependent on Ken's willingness to completely bare his soul in our interviews, for his emotional life quickly became the book's structuring narrative. In this sense, Ken was a biographer's dream come true. He never once protested or answered evasively, even when I asked him the most personal of questions. I watched his eyes fill with tears many times as I queried him repeatedly about the various losses in his past, and those tears set the standard of honesty that I strove to adhere to in writing the story of his life.

Ken was also unstinting in his willingness to allow me to write about times and events in his life that many of us who have had similar experiences would prefer to have forgotten. Although he confessed to a feeling of wanting to close his eyes as he read certain parts of this book, he never once complained to me or asked me to censor any detail. In fact, his only concerns were with the fairness with which the other people in his life were portrayed. The quote from John Fire Lame Deer that prefaces this book is directed toward those readers who believe that their healers should be something other than completely human.

Both Ken and I felt as I was writing the book that we were part of an exciting and unique process, which I hope you as reader will share in. This is as much your story as it is Ken's. We are all each other, after all.

I would like to thank all of my friends at Book People here in Austin, the finest bookstore I have ever been in, for all of their invaluable help and assistance, particularly the staff, past and present, of their Coffeehouse, where I spent two months writing this book. I would also like to thank Sandy Saunders, Daniel Rogers, Mary Darragh, Shirley Holly, Dianne Cooper and Caron and Geoffrey Cash as well as all of the other readers who volunteered to read the first draft and offered their suggestions for revisions. As always, I have Jeri Moses to thank for offering me constant encouragement and irrefutable proof of the existence of angels.

I would enjoy hearing from readers of this book, and am always interested in new writing ventures. Please contact me in care of the Institute for MCH™ if you have something that you wish to share with me.

Austin, Texas, 1996