“You have been invited to attend a retreat at the author’s lakeside cottage.
This will be an “armchair retreat” because it doesn’t require your physical presence—just the presence of your mind and imagination.”

Thus begins one of the sixteen introductions by Robert Kolb to introduce the reader to each of Janice Gray Kolb’s published works.

While this book is an introduction to Jan’s prolific writings, it is also a tribute to her husband, “Green Bob,” who not only typed each of Jan’s handwritten manuscripts, but penned his own thoughtful essays to introduce the key thoughts to the reader and to ponder the inspirations of each work.

The main themes in Jan’s work can be gleaned from her book titles and subtitles: compassion for all of God’s creatures, including eating a vegetarian diet; emotional, psychological, and spiritual healing through journal writing; the effects of parental child abuse; the loss of loved ones and coping with personal grief; and contemplative meditations intermingled with her powerful visual poetry.

To know Jan is also to know her beloved feline companion, Rochester, who sat with her on the window ledge as she wrote her early works, and then, after his passing, continued to inspire her writings with his spirit-presence.

Jan also writes in her introduction of her enduring love for Bob while alive, and Bob’s several after-life visitations to her after his passing. These special events are a testament to their special life-long love and continuing connection to each other beyond time and space.

Jan still lives in their retirement cottage, hidden in the woods beside a lake, where the two of them spent quiet days and evening meals for many years—the Thoreaus of our day. Consider this little volume their guiding north star.

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Word in Preparation by Jan Kolb
Whispered Notes
Higher Ground
Compassion for All Creatures: An Inspirational Guide for Healing the Ostrich Syndrome
Journal of Love: Spiritual Communication with Animals Through Journal Writing
The Enchantment of Writing: Spiritual Healing and Delight Through the Written Word
Beneath the Stars and Trees ...There Is a Place: A Woodland Retreat
Silent Violence: Excerpts from a Diary Covering a Period of 50 Years, from the Child Struggling to find the Adult — to the Adult Struggling to Cope with the Problems of the Child Still Within Her
Beside the Still Waters: Creative Meditations from the Woods
In Corridors of Eternal Time: A Passage Through Grief—A Journal
Solace of Solitude: Afterlife Visits—A Journey
A Pilgrim on Life’s Road: Guidance for the Traveller—A Continuing Journey
Cherishing: Poetry for Pilgrims—Journeying On
Silent Keepers: Ellis and Rochester—Then and Forever
Reflections by the Lake: Journaling Life’s Journey
Reverence for All Life: The Path to Ahimsa—Vegetarianism
The Astonishing Adventures of Luki Tawdry
Bob’s Window

Excerpt from the Introduction

Bob Kolb is my husband, and soul mate, sweetheart, daily partner in life, and now too in afterlife–and for all eternity. Officially known as Dr. Robert Alexander Kolb, Jr., he is the author of the informative and finely written passages that are in the beginning of my books and are titled “A Word in Preparation.” I am so grateful that he had completed these for the final two books before he was taken suddenly to Heaven. I always wanted to and always will want to honor him in every way possible, and he too was lovingly the same in my regard.

Bob was a retired Pedodontist—a dentist and specialist in the care of children, very especially difficult children with behavior problems and, too, those who were ill. He had a private practice in an office in a town not far from Jenkintown where we lived, both towns just outside Philadelphia. He also gave his time on occasion in several well-known hospitals.

We are the parents of six grown children, one son and five daughters. Immediately after the birth of our sixth child, we took a vacation on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire with our new baby and our five other children and six little Cairn terrier dogs. We had three Cairns for some time when one gave birth to three puppies the night before we were to leave on this vacation, and so all the little family of dogs came with us and Bob handled details very well. Our large Ford van accommodated us all quite well too. It was a memorable vacation that led us five years later to purchase our beautiful property in the woods of New Hampshire on Balch Lake—right outside our front door—and Bob retired from dentistry to become a woodsman. He built a large dock out front on the lake, six amazing gardens surrounded by raised rock walls, a Prayer Chair Platform for me, holding an Adirondack chair under a trilogy of tall pines by our lake. Our entire property is filled with tall trees and newer ones we have planted, and a spacious large open grassy area outside the front of our cottage. Bob also built his own office a few yards from the side of our cottage. It is very sweet and precious to me and it was in this office he did many creative things just as he did on our property outside. And very especially it was in this office that he typed all of my sixteen books I wrote in long-hand for I did not type. We were—still are forever—an amazing couple and team.

Blue Dolphin Publishing, 2015