Bernie Dahl, M.D. of Winterport, ME, USA is in the process of writing What Better Place to Die, which is based on his “near death” experience on Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. The book is adapted from Dr. Dahl’s keynotes and seminars entitled “Lesson for Living from a Mt. Washington Misadventure”, wherein he admonishes his audience to do three things:

1)Be prepared to die (Have you life in order)

2)Have a plan to live (Take charge of your life)

3)Do it now (You never know when #1 above will hit you!).

The book is a hybrid of three parts: memoir, how-to, and a touch of down-home philosophy entitled The Journey Into The Self. It will be written in 2007 as a “blog to book” project led by The Blog Squad of California, so that readers may join Dr. Dahl as he and his rescuers relive, in words, the ordeal on the mountain.

Here is an excerpt from the introduction of the book:

The phases of one’s life may be divided into specific episodes, usually of short duration and often of great intensity. For me, one of these episodes occurred on Mt. Washington in New Hampshire, a week before my sixty-first birthday. Although for years my life had focused on my medical practice, I found time to respond to the lure of the mountains.

Mountaineering, that death-defying dance with gravity, offers freedom, challenge, risk, and (hopefully) success in summiting. Over several decades I had hiked on five continents and climbed on some of the highest and most dramatic mountains in the world—from Mt. Elbrus in Russia to Kilimanjaro in Africa to Aconcagua in Argentina—each the highest mountains in their respective continents. I was never a pretender to stand atop Mt. Everest.

On those spectacular mountains I was a member of organized teams with highly-qualified guides. I returned without a serious incident, although climbers around me died.. In mountaineering, Goal #2 is to summit. Goal #1 is to return safely and intact.

The Mt. Washington episode was different. That which started as a simple hike turned into a disastrous life-threatening misadventure.

There is a popular concept that everyone should enjoy fifteen minutes of fame. I, however, experienced a much longer period of infamy—of negative coverage on countless media outlets nationwide. There are three controversies surrounding my misadventure:

1.My use of a cellular telephone to call for

rescue (instead of good decisions)

2.I was hiking solo

3.My decision to press on, instead of turning

back, when the weather changed from rain to

snow.

As I shared my story in keynote presentations and workshops, and as I started to write this book, a question emerged: Had my misadventure been a quest, in a mythical, yet real, sense? Had I been lured into a personal quest by marvelous snowflakes, when the weather changed from a dreary, rainy fall day into a winter wonderland?

My parents were from Norway, so I was raised on Norse myths and fairy tales. In grade school we studied Beowulf and the tales of King Arthur and the quest for the Holy Grail. In college, we studied Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, the ultimate Christian allegory. During one summer I attended the University of Oslo Summer School and studied Norse myths and Icelandic sagas, ion their original languages.

In 1989, my world of myths was expanded, yet paradoxically focused and simplified, when I attended a workshop at The Esalen Institute in California. The workshop celebrated the life and writings of Joseph Campbell, based on his book Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Campbell wrote that there is a commonality of myths throughout time and place. He also noted that there are generally three phases of the quest in mythology: departure, initiation, and return. These phases, these rites of passage, may be started by a “call to adventure,” and evolve through a series of thresholds: the possibility of meeting interesting characters and of gaining supernatural aids or assistance, then rescue and finally return.

The quest takes the hero into a new and unknown world of trials and testing, and back home. The hero always travels solo. However, a true hero who returns from a quest dies as an ordinary person and is reborn as a new or eternal person. The returning hero has changed and then lives a new life, for he then lives in two worlds.

It would be presumptuous for me to equate my three-day misadventure and the months of follow-up physical recovery, introspection, and resolution to the great mythical quests. The classic quests include the tribulation of Odysseus, who sailed the Mediterranean for years; the struggles of Gautama the Buddha, who spent much of a lifetime to gain enlightenment; and the sufferings of Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods and was chained to Mt. Elbrus.

For every hero—even an antihero—there is not only an initial call to adventure; there may be a final call to share the new message gained on the quest. It may be a message that falls on deaf, even angry, ears.

Although my own experience was on a much smaller scale than these mythical quests, I share my message in my book. I address my misadventure as both a physical and spiritual quest, as well as a key source of lessons learned that will impact the remainder of my life. They will also redefine my view of death and contribute to a deeper understanding of my persona, the view I like to present to the public. But above all, the lessons provide a deep exploration into my true nature, the genuine me. I share my own Journey Into the Self.

It has been said that in the entire world, over all the ages, there are only two story themes:

1.Local person leaves town.

2.Stranger comes to town.

Mine is a story of both.

Bernie Dahl, M.D.
http://www.articlesbase.com/writing-articles/what-better-place-to-die-by-bernie-dahl-md-join-dr-dahl-as-he-writes-about-his-misadventure-121865.html

Dancing with the Stars on ABC has become a consistent Top 5 hit for the network. It’s meteoric rise from summer afterthought to prime time juggernaut has been surprising, at least to some. Dancing with the Stars seems like a highly specific show for a highly specific niche audience. Who has ever thought to themselves, “You know what would be really cool? If they made a reality show that took professional dancers and paired them with C-List celebrities and they performed ballroom dances and I could vote on them.”

The answer is, probably, only a few heavily deranged humans. However, when Dancing with the Stars debuted almost a year and a half ago, the ratings were incredible. Americans, as history shows, never know what they want until it appears. The show was a massive hit, and not a fluke. Flukes don’t those receive the kind of ratings Dancing with the Stars receives over and over. Dancing with the Stars defied all expectations, rose from the summer scrap heaps, led by nothing more than word of mouth. The question that comes to mind, of course, is this:

Why?
Why is Dancing with the Stars a hit? Why does it appeal to so many viewers? Why does it comprise twenty percent of the Nielsen top five rated shows every week it airs.

Dancing with the Stars success has been an enigma for both the outsider and rabid viewer. Until now.

BuddyTV’s article cuts to the core of Dancing with the Star’s popularity. The conclusions as to why Dancing with the Stars is a hit may surprise you. Do people watch Dancing with the Stars to see the beautiful dancers, like Willa Ford, Mario Lopez, Vivica A. Fox, and Joey Lawrence? Not quite.

Dancing with the Stars status as a top 5 hit isn’t random, as it may seem to an outsider. The performance of Dancing with the Stars is actually predictable, once you delve deep into its nature and the different components of the show, as BuddyTV does.

Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Writer

If you want to din out more info about Dancing with the Stars or Why is Dancing with the Stars Popular?, please visit this link http://www.buddytv.com/

Groshan Fabiola
http://www.articlesbase.com/art-and-entertainment-articles/why-is-dancing-with-the-stars-popular-68483.html