With a career in the helping professions, I’ve read more than my share of psychology-oriented books than I care to admit. However, after studying James Hollis’s ‘Living on Borrowed Dust,’ I must count this volume of beautifully trenchant and keenly insightful essays as one of the top surveys on the human condition I have ever read.

Hollis writes poetically with precision, peeling back and exposing our shared humanity (or lack thereof) with its frailties, proclivities, strivings, successes, and fumbling. He clarifies opaque social-cultural and individual terrain, offering each of us specific keys to unlock a better understanding of self in the world and methods of tapping into transformational energy and personal balance in the spiritual cosmos. He performs this Herculean task with wry deftness, literary acumen, humor, and love.

What Hollis has fashioned here, with devotion in fire, hammer, and anvil, is a rare and vital tool for navigating the exigencies present in oneself and modernity. This sage volume will stand the test of time and provide anyone fortunate enough to read it an expanded view of what it is to be human, along with keys to one’s higher calling and self-perceptions.

In Living with Borrowed Dust, James Hollis, PhD, invites readers to reflect on life’s impermanence and the stories that shape us. Drawing on decades of work as a Jungian analyst, Hollis brings warmth, humor, and hard-won wisdom to some of life’s biggest questions: What gives us meaning? How do we reconcile joy and suffering? Through deeply personal reflections and rich psychological insights, he offers a map for navigating life’s complexities with courage and authenticity. This book is a call to slow down, listen to the quiet voice of the soul, and reconnect with what truly matters. Blending psychology, poetry, and myth, Hollis writes with a clarity that cuts through life’s noise and leaves you thinking long after you’ve put the book down. For anyone seeking to live more deeply and intentionally, Living with Borrowed Dust is a wise and thought-provoking companion. I highly recommend!