Scales of the Dragon

To date, I’ve written three books pertaining to the experience of walking the Camino de Santiago, a 1000-year-old European Pilgrimage with many points of departure, but which all lead to the northwestern Spanish province of Galicia... to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela under which the bones of St. James the Apostle are believed to be buried. “It’s the Journey, not the destination,” could not be more true. Combining journal entries, poetry and formal e-mails, these books celebrate the sights, sounds, flavors, (and the physical and mental strain), of crossing mountains, rolling landscapes, and unchanged rural villages, as well as vibrant cities of Art, Architechture and Style. Combining journal entries, poetry and formal e-mails, these books relay the experience in a first-hand way of “what it’s like to labor and glide a couple thousand miles across Europe.”
Scales of the Dragon collects the poems from Sons of Thunder, Autumn on the Trail to Santiago and Upon This Stoney Holy Year. And although nothing new is literally added, what emerges is a shift in Perception. To ‘walk’ the trail by way of poetic imagery is an entirely different modality - it is to walk through someone else’s In-scape but awaken in one’s own skin - and it’s not for everyone... but for those with whom it resonates, here is the full spray of poems.