The Ascending Path

Thirteen years ago, during meditation near the summit of a five-hundred-foot dune in the Algerian Sahara, seventeen words crystallised in pristine desert silence. Those words waited, ripening through decades of lived experience, before spontaneously emerging as seventeen complete poems following a retreat in the Oxfordshire woods. The Ascending Path: From Gratitude to Wisdom distils a lifetime of spiritual exploration into accessible prose poetry that honours both transcendent moments and everyday struggles. Growing up in Malawi, Andy Martin experienced interconnectedness as lived reality through tribal wisdom, a foundation that shaped decades exploring Southeast Asian contemplative traditions, European mysticism, and Siberian shamanic practices. His work as a clinical hypnotherapist revealed how transformation unfolds in spirals, not straight lines. These seventeen contemplative poems explore essential spiritual virtues not as abstract ideals but as lived experiences, found in morning light over unmade beds, in the slow unfolding of forgiveness, and in the extraordinary hiding within ordinary moments. THE COLLECTION'S JOURNEY Foundation: gratitude, humility, forgiveness, interconnectedness, service, grace Inner Development: compassion, wonder, manifestation, acceptance, courage, hope Embodied Wisdom: resilience, presence, spiritual awakening, surrender, wisdom Each poem stands alone while contributing to a larger map of spiritual growth, not as prescription, but as invitation. The verses avoid both spiritual bypassing and cynical materialism, recognising that wisdom develops through fully engaging with life rather than escaping from it. THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU IF YOU: - Seek spiritual depth without dogma or preaching - Value wisdom earned through lived experience - Appreciate accessible poetry over academic verse - Trust your own spiral journey of growth - Sense that what you seek might already be present - Want daily reflections that honour life's full spectrum ABOUT THE POEMS Written in accessible prose poetry, these contemplations bypass the analytical mind to speak directly to intuition and heart. Each poem offers images from everyday experience where the extraordinary appears: dust motes dancing like prayers, the baker's hands kneading dough as worship, shadows that teach us the weight of what we once held. The journey follows a spiral rather than straight line; we circle back through gratitude, humility, and forgiveness, but from higher ground, with deeper understanding. THE ORIGIN STORY After that Saharan meditation, Andy wrote seventeen words alongside a quote from St. Francis of Assisi: "What you are looking for is already where you are looking from." Those words remained dormant, quietly integrating through years of practice and discovery. Then, following a recent retreat, they spontaneously emerged as complete poems—seventeen expressions of the spiritual journey that required no editing, asking only to be received. The Ascending Path: From Gratitude to Wisdom represents the ripening of wisdom across decades, cultures, and contemplative traditions, distilled into poetry that serves as waypoints on your personal journey, reflecting the wisdom you already possess within. Seventeen poems. Thirteen years from desert silence to woodland awakening. A lifetime of exploration condensed into accessible spiritual wisdom for modern seekers. As St. Francis reminds us: "What you are looking for is already where you are looking from."