Panom and the Stone of Light is a children's story about elephants and humans. PANOM is the great elephant matriarch who descends from the heavens to watch over all earthly elephants. She carries with her a magnificent stone of light that is eventually discovered by a few humans who believe the stone to be a source of power and wealth. They conspire to steal the stone for their own purposes. This first story in the parables of Panom illuminates the need for better understanding and appreciation of the natural world and all of its inhabitants, it's generosity and potential. Panom and the Stone of Light is a lovely Buddhist parable for both young readers and adults alike.
About the Author: Galen Garwood was born in the southern United States in 1944 and spent most of his young life growing up on St. Simon's Island, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina. At the age of sixteen, he joined his rag-time piano playing mother, Ida Lane, in Fairbanks, Alaska, alternately working at the famed Malemute Saloon and attending the University of Alaska in Fairbanks with a major in music and art and a minor in writing. He first traveled to Asia in 1969 then settled in Seattle, Washington where he continued his education and received a Bachelor of Arts Degree from University of Washington. He began exhibiting his paintings at Foster-White Gallery in Seattle in 1973. Over the course of the last four decades, he has exhibited his paintings in the United States and in Europe. His creative contributions have also been expressed in writing, poetry, multi-media and film. In 1976 he won First Place in Painting at the Pacific Northwest Annual and in 1979 the Hassam Speicher Award at the Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, New York. His multi-media piece 'Adagio' won a Bronze Award at the International Multi-media Film Festival in Philadelphia,1995, and in 1996 was included in the 1996 Venice Biennale's Xenograhia Nomadic Wall and again at 'Art Affair' in New York. His film 'Cadmium Red Light was awarded First Place for Narrative/Documentary at the Port Townsend International Film Festival in 2007 and a First Place Award for Short Documentary for 'Ed and Ed' at the DeReel Film Festival in Australia in 2008. He collaborated with the Pacific Northwest Ballet in 1979 and with a number of poets, most notably, American Poet, Sam Hamill with 'Passport'-the book and the multi-media-with poet and filmmaker James Broughton and most recently with American writer and poet, Peter Weltner, on a new project entitled 'The One-Winged Body', a book of photographs and poems. Galen currently lives mainly in Thailand where he continues to be involved with the plight of the Asian elephant. He also continues his visual work and is now developing a new documentary film script on the Northwest Mystic painter, Morris Graves. 'Panom and the Stone of Light' is the first of several parables written by Galen Garwood as well as an upcoming chapter book for young readers called 'Bench'.