About the Author

When the doctor gave the twenty-six-year-old Wayne Stier a fifty-fifty chance of survival after cancer treatment, he decided not to waste a moment of his life. He left the Midwest U.S.A. where he had been teaching high school English and headed off to Japan with his wife Mars.

They taught English for a year in Tokyo before joining the American Buffalo Wild West Rodeo Traveling Caravan Show, quit that after roping the boss, and became University professors. Wayne also became a student of six-hundred-year-old Japanese drama--he was the second foreigner ever to perform on the classic Noh stage.

The couple left Japan and traveled the world before Wayne became a writer and photographer. He has published five books and numerous articles along with his photographs.

Now Wayne and Mars live in the solar powered home they built on a slope of Mauna Loa, the world's largest active volcano located on the Big Island of Hawaii. While in Hawaii Wayne began carving wood in the form of humans and spirits.