The Way of the Dreamcatcher: Spirit Lessons with Robert Lax: Poet, Peacemaker, Sage.

The Way of the Dreamcatcher: Spirit Lessons with Robert Lax: Poet, Peacemaker, Sage.

By S. T. Georgiou. Foreword by Brother Patrick Hart, OCSO. Novalis, Saint Paul University: 23 Main Street, Ottawa, Canada, 2002. Paperback - 288 pages with 32 pages of colour photos and artwork.

Reviewed by Paul Fromont.

If you find a man who is constant, awake to the inner [movements of God], learned, long suffering, endowed with devotion, a [holy] man – follow this good and great man even as the moon follows the path of the stars.

Adapted from The Dhammapada translated by Juan Mascaro. Quoted in the introductory pages to The Way of the Dreamcatcher.

This book is a veritable storehouse of treasure. Within days of it arriving in the post it had been read and in parts reread. I first came across it just after its publication in 2002, by way of online excerpts from interviews between the author, Steve Georgiou, and American poet/mystic/”boatman” Robert Lax (b.1915). Sadly I only purchased a copy in 2005.

Lax, the lifelong best friend of Trappist monk Thomas Merton, moved, in 1963, to the Greek Islands of Kalymnos and Patmos (the latter from whence St. John wrote his Apocalypse). Lax spent the last 35 years of his life at Skala on Patmos, before rapidly failing health lead to his return to Olean, New York (his place of birth). Shortly after that return, Robert Lax died peacefully in his sleep on the 26^th September 2000, funnily enough, the feast day of St John the Divine, already referred to above. He was buried in the Friar’s cemetery, near St. Bonaventure University, New York.

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Comments

[Martin Davies]

Your Robert Lax piece made me realise again the rich literary ferment among Thomas Merton's friends, and of their own identity, quite apart from association with Merton. Ed Rice 'The Man in the Sycamore Tree' also comes to mind. Some years ago I saw copies for sale of the several volumes of Merton's Letters, and of course have often regretted not buying them. Nice to be reminded of all this.

[Dan-Monastic Skete]

Paul, thanks for doing the book review. It is an exceptional story. I wish more people would read it.