THE WARRIOR IN THE GARDEN

The fourth book in The Secret Temple series: a companion of fifty poems, not a training manual.

It is better to be a warrior in the garden than a gardener in a war.

Most people hear only half of that saying. They hear readiness. They miss the garden.

This is a book of martial arts poetry drawn from a lifetime of internal martial arts, and from the quieter work that training is supposed to serve: breathwork, posture, character, marriage, fatherhood, fear, and the long return to what is already here.

It is not a course in ninpo. It is not instructions for awakening. It makes no claim to hidden power. It will not replace the dojo.

It is what remains when the outer forms fall away.

Some poems came from the mats.
Some came from the Soutpansberg.
Some came from a farm night when the dogs broke the silence.
Some came from a marriage that refused to flatter the man who trained.
Some came from watching a son sleep, and recognising the breath the art had been trying to give back.

The fifty poems move through five scrolls:

I. The Temple Awakens - breath, posture, the living sanctuary
II. Shadows at the Gate - the tests that arrive after a little progress
III. Earth and Water - stability, yield, and what the land teaches
IV. Fire, Wind, and Void - will, spaciousness, and the five elements
V. Warriors of Light - teaching, blood over ink, and the work of decades

This book is for martial artists who have collected techniques and remain strangers to their own breath. It is also for anyone who wants to walk peacefully through a garden, and still be ready when the storm comes.

The secret temple was never a cave in a mountain. It is the human being: body, breath, mind, and character.

Read one poem.
Put the book down.
Breathe the way it asks.
Then begin.

Drawn from Awaken and Fortify the Secret Temple, The Fortified Temple, and The Elemental Temple.