Rusty Moe's new volume of poems, Way-Marks, pulses with voices of love and joy, release and renewal, sorrow and metamorphosis. Whether honoring family and loss, as in "When My Mother Was Dying, We Ate Ice Cream" or "A Poem For My Father Whom I Never Knew," or finding again the source of spiritual place in "Tell Me My Life Again," he gives his reader access to the intimate journey that everyone is taking in his or her own way. Markings are identifiers of where we are or signs of places we have been. In Way-Marks, Moe offers artful writing that blends a grounded spirituality with a gentle sensuality; that rejoices in the abandonment of the self and identity; that bends and entwines current events with generations-old memories; that celebrates the fleeting emotions and unplanned changes occurring within, and around, each of us. Reverent and quietly beautiful, Way-Marks is a perfect book for those engaging the markings of life and gratified to find that they are not alone.
“In Way-Marks, Rusty Moe has written a world I want desperately to live in. Touching and true–one moment witty, the next moment heartrending–his poems do everything good writing should do.”
–Philip Gulley
Author of the acclaimed Harmony series
Co-author, If Grace Is True
"A heart’s fierce psalms bloom intricate in shades of grateful prayer and protests. A strongly accomplished, quietly beautiful volume."
–Jonathan Montaldo
Editor, A Year With Thomas Merton and
The Intimate Merton: His Life From His Journals
“This collection of poems/meditations is a welcomed gift: with grace, we are led on an intimate journey to our most private places. Rusty Moe's spiritually-potent poetry simply delivers us to our illuminated truth.”
–Linda Z. Smith
Co-founder, Creative Spirit Center, Midland, Michigan
Co-author, Creating YES!
“Resonating through Way-Marks are the pulsing voices of love and joy, release and renewal, sorrow and metamorphosis. Rusty Moe speaks the heart's language, which may be foreign to some, but will resound for most as the language of (our real) home.”
–Cheryl Sanders-Sardello, Robert Sardello
Co-founders, The School of Spiritual Psychology
–Robert Sardello
Author, Love And The Soul and Silence
"The shadow of our humanity glows redeemed in Way-Marks. Rusty Moe’s poetry lifts us above the tension and angst of paradox and grounds us in the reverent simplicity of surrender."
–Jerry Wennstrom
Author, The Inspired Heart: An Artist’s Journey of Transformation
Subject of Sentient Publications/Parabola documentary, In the Hands of Alchemy
About Rusty C. Moe
Rusty C. Moe is the author of two previous works of poetry, Our Presence Together In Chaos and Where God Learns, both published by Black Moss Press. A native of Midland, Michigan, he is a graduate of Saginaw Valley College (English and psychology), United Theological Seminary (counseling and religious studies), Butler University (creative writing) and holds certificates from the School of Spiritual Psychology and the Gestalt Institutes of Indianapolis and Cleveland. He is an instructor with the Indianapolis Gestalt Institute and the Creative Spirit Center. He is a supervisor in the marriage and family therapy program at Christian Theological Seminary. He has been, for many years, a psychotherapist in private practice in Indianapolis, Indiana, where he lives with his partner, Tim Hoover.