Michael Jaquish is a practicing Buddhist of the Tibetan Mahayana tradition following the path of the Bodhisattva. He is also a poet, an artist, a novelist and a journalist. Following a career as a peace officer in America he traveled to West Africa to serve as director of security for US Embassy operations in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Gambia and for the NASA Space Shuttle Abort Landing site. In his spare time, Michael spent many years roaming the jungles in search of adventure and exotic creatures and sketching and writing about what he found. Michael has published over fifteen books drawing upon his studies of Buddhism, his fertile imagination and his experience with international security consulting and training. He currently lives among the tall fir trees in the rain forests of the Pacific Northwest where he continues to write and ponder the meaning of life while striving to find a balance between practicing compassion for all beings and making people safe in an unsafe world.