ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PHIL COUSINEAU WAS BORN IN 1952 at the Fort Jackson army hospital in Columbia, South Carolina and grew up in Wayne, Michigan. While moonlighting in an automotive parts factory, he studied journalism at the University of Detroit. His peripatetic career has included sports writing, playing basketball in Europe, harvesting date trees on an Israeli kibbutz, painting forty-four Victorian houses in San Francisco, and leading adventure travel tours around the world.

Cousineau is an author, editor, photographer, tour leader, teacher, and documentary filmmaker. His lifelong fascination with art, literature, and the history of culture has taken him on journeys around the world. He lectures frequently on a wide range of topics including: mythology, movies, environmental design, community work, creativity, mentorship, and soul.

He is the author of several books including Wordcatcher: An Odyssey into the World of Weird and Wonderful Words; Stoking the Creative Fires: 9 Ways to Rekindle Passion and Imagination; Once and Future Myths: The Power of Ancient Stories in Modern Times; The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work; The Soul Aflame: A Modern Book of Hours; and The Way Things Are: Conversations with Huston Smith on the Spiritual Life. He has also authored two books of poetry, Night Train and The Blue Museum, and has contributed to dozens of other books including John Densmore's Riders on the Storm: My Life With Jim Morrison and the Doors.

Cousineau's screenwriting credits in documentary films, which have won more than twenty-five international awards, include Ecological Design: Inventing the Future; The Peyote Road; The Red Road to Sobriety; Your Humble Serpent: The Life of Reuben Snake; Wiping the Tears of Seven Generations; Eritrea: March to Freedom; The Presence of the Goddess; The Hero's Journey: The World of Joseph Campbell; and the 1991 Academy Award-nominated Forever Activists: Stories from the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

Cousineau currently hosts the PBS show Global Spirit, an “internal travel” television series. He lives in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco, California. Visit him online at www.philcousineau.net.

For more information on Phil Cousineau's art and literary tours and organized pilgrimages, please contact:

Sisyphus Travels

P. O. Box 330098

San Francisco, CA 94133