John has been lightly dancing, life-long, over the chasm between two cultural groups at the farthest ends of a great divide: playing in the language of those immersed in the world of ropes and carabiners, and scattering amongst them, from time to time, the language of art; and dancing with people immersed in the world’s cultural and spiritual waters, few of whom truly know or care about raw muscle strain on a rock face. Thankfully, for this book, in which the blood of both worlds flows and mingles, John has found two wise and sensitive souls to write, in their respective ‘languages’, eloquent forewords about his trickster dancing... Hopefully, together, they will lay bare the great divide for the reader of these essays, and help to bridge it...