I · The First Doorway
Jailbirds in Flight
Nicole Daedone
Everything You Wanted to Know About Enlightenment in Prison but Were Too Afraid to Ask
II · Wall Text
A book written from inside a federal prison,
about the freedom that begins there.
When Nicole Daedone was incarcerated at MDC Brooklyn, she began teaching meditation to the women around her. What followed is not a memoir of confinement. It is a study of what the human interior can become when nothing outside it will move.
The dorm became a meditation hall. The bunks became cells in the older, monastic sense of the word. The women — some serving decades, some waiting to be sentenced — became the teachers of a small, unlikely school of freedom.
Jailbirds in Flight is the first book in that school. It is not a program, and it is not advice. It is a record — carefully kept, plainly told — of what happened, and of what became visible once the noise of the outside world was taken away.
III · The Author
Nicole Daedone
Nicole Daedone is a writer and teacher whose work moves between contemplative practice, women's interior life, and the plain fact of being human. She wrote Jailbirds in Flight from inside MDC Brooklyn.
Her earlier work drew from Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, mystical traditions, and years of teaching. This book is her most personal — and, in her own words, her most useful.
IV · Where to Find It
The book is out in the world.
If it has already found you here, that is enough. If you'd like to hold a copy, it is waiting.
The Companion
Jailbirds in Flight Workbook
Each section offers a reflection from Nicole Daedone, followed by journaling prompts, group discussion questions, and practical steps for daily life.
Nicole Daedone has given the copyright, all book proceeds, and related rights to the Jailbirds in Flight Trust, so this story can keep benefiting others. The Trust shares its funds between the women she was incarcerated with — whose stories helped shape this book — and the non-profit Unconditional Freedom, which runs the Art of Soulmaking and Guards to Guardians. Published by Soulmaker Press.