Available for Pre-Order: Release Date: November 10, 2026

Matthew Fox’s new book, with foreword by Mirabai Starr, offers a powerful new interpretation of the great Christian mystic, John of the Cross. By employing the four paths of Creation Spirituality, he makes him come alive again. John only had access to the traditional paths of purgation, illumination, and union to interpret his profound poetry, and he had the Spanish Inquisition breathing down his neck, so his writings are sometimes misunderstood—or not seen clearly. Matthew Fox shows how John was in fact way ahead of his time.

Fox recognizes some of John's greatest poems including the legendary “Dark Night” and "Spiritual Canticle" as prison literature, part of his prophetic vocation or the Via Transformativa path of Creation Spirituality, the struggle for justice. The Via Creativa also proves paramount since John is considered one of the best poets in the Spanish language to this day. The Via Positiva is stunningly present in his poems as is the Via Negativa and John’s profound sense of the apophatic divinity that names the ineffable darkness and mystery of Divinity. Matthew Fox brings all of this alive for spiritual seekers today and brings John of the Cross into fresh, immediate relevance. The four paths reset John’s  spiritual gifts and genius just when we need them the most: as we find ourselves in a triple dark night—that of soul, society (democracy), and Mother Earth beset by global warming at the hands of humanity.

Reviews

“Here we discover a mystic overflowing with love for creation and the natural world, on fire for justice, a person both saved and transformed by his creative life as a poet. This book is a call to joy — not despite the obvious peril in and around us but rather through the fiery gate of reality. By lifting the poetic power of one of the world’s greatest mystics as a light to guide us through the triple dark night of our times, Matthew Fox fills us with hope that this darkness is transformative, that art is a path to liberation, and that our embodied experience is not the impediment many of us were conditioned to believe it is, but rather the dwelling place of the divine.” –Marabai Starr, from the Forward.

“This book is unputdownable. Truly brilliant. It is a wonderful love letter to the world. And with the insertion of the Via Positiva, it offers a vital fourth dimension, a great honoring, and a beautiful unfolding of San Juan’s great work.” —Robert Holden, author of Higher Purpose: How to Find Meaning, Inspiration and Purpose in Your Life, and Shift Happens

“In this extraordinary work, both of exegesis and prophetic passion, Matthew Fox presents us from the blazing heart of the Christian mystical tradition exactly the guide we need to steer us through the terrifying and all comprehensive dark night we are now enduring. Fox’s St. John not only understands with devastating lucidity all the stages of the dark night process, he also knows how to endure them and live them not only as a dying, but as a birthing into embodied liberation and lived Christhood.” —Andrew Harvey, author of Son of Man and The Magdalene Revolution

“As someone whose heart burns for collective liberation, Matthew Fox’s truly original exploration of St. John of the Cross invigorated my soul. Though I thought I was well-acquainted with John the Mystic, this eye-opening book introduced me to John the Activist and brought a more holistic vision of John into focus. By bringing John’s courageous justice efforts into the foreground and recasting John’s exquisite poetry as prison literature, Fox illuminates the direct but often hidden path between activism and mysticism and affirms their cosmic unity. Then, he lovingly guides us through John’s transformative story, blazing a trail for today's mystic-activists to encounter and embody the Beloved in the midst of our individual and collective dark nights of the soul.” —Christena Cleveland, founder of the Black Madonna Freedom School; author of The Black Madonna: Icon of Resistance and Nourisher of Souls

"I celebrate Matthew Fox’s recurring efforts to resuscitate the mystics and relate their lives and work to the prophetic tradition. He does it again in this exciting reinterpretation of John of the Cross applying John's wisdom to what Fox calls the “triple dark night of our times.” He brings John of the Cross alive to us today and invites us all to drink from his well."  -- Father Richard Rohr, OFM, author of The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage and The Universal Christ.

"I think one of Matthew Fox's most important contributions in this book is that he is not simply reinterpreting John of the Cross. In some ways, he is helping return John to dimensions of his own experience that the theological framework of sixteenth-century Spain could not fully articulate. Reading John through the lens of creation spirituality, Fox reveals a mystic not only of the dark night, but also of beauty, creativity, love, and transformation. The result is a John who feels startlingly contemporary and a book that serves as both a guide to one of Christianity's greatest mystics and a companion for navigating the social, ecological, and spiritual crises of our own time. Few books on spirituality feel as urgently relevant or as full of hope." — Rev. Adam Bucko, author of Let Your Heartbreak Be Your Guide: Lessons in Engaged Contemplation.

“Matthew Fox is one of our wisest Christian teachers. Here he brings to life St. John’s classic textsincluding The Dark Night of the Soul, and unpacks its lights and visions for the dark nights of our own bleak time. He explains the prophetic side of John’s mysticism, and just in time, because we all need to speak out prophetically as he did, as Matthew does, and proclaim God’s reign of peace and justice with all its glorious, revolutionary, political implications. This book sheds new light on St. John, and connects the activist, political and mystical dimensions of the spiritual life, but most of all, it encourages us to seek union with God. May it be a beacon of hope and renewal for many!” -- Rev. John Dear, author of The Gospel of Peace, Peace Behind Bars, and Universal Love, and director of The Beatitudes Center for the Non-violent Jesus.