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September/October 2004 Conscious Media
Book Reviews

The Impossible Will Take a Little While
by Paul Loeb, $15.95, Basic Books publishers, September, 2004.

How do we keep on when times get tough? Paul Loeb explores this in his new book on political hope, The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen’s Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear. This book creates a conversation among some of the most visionary and eloquent voices of our times: Think Nelson Mandela, Maya Angelou, Arundhati Roy, Tony Kushner, and Václav Havel. Alice Walker, Jonathan Kozol, Diane Ackerman, Susan Griffin, and Marian Wright Edelman. Cornel West, Terry Tempest Williams, Jim Hightower, and Desmond Tutu. There's also some guy named Howard Zinn.

With this book, editor Paul Rogat Loeb, whom Susan Sontag has called "a national treasure" for his work on courage and conscience, builds on his activist classic, "Soul of a Citizen." He explores what it's like to go up against Goliath, whether South African apartheid, the iron fist of Eastern European dictatorship, or Mississippi segregation. These stories don't sugarcoat the obstacles. But they inspire hope by showing what keeps us keeping on--even when the odds seem overwhelming. They replenish the wellsprings of our commitment.

If you care about change in a world where most people are told their voices don't count, think of this book as a gift to yourself--hope for the homestretch in an immensely critical election, bread for the journey to keep on working for justice no matter what happens in November, sustenance to return to again and again at those points when your spirit begins to flag.

Find out more by visiting www.theimpossible.org. You'll find excerpts from the book, wonderful reviews, suggestions for reading groups and classroom questions, and lots more. Barbara Ehrenreich says, "For anyone worn down by four years of Bushism, The Impossible Will Take a Little While is a bracing double cappuccino!" MoveOn cofounder Joan Blades says, "As I read these stories, I'm reminded yet again of the incredible power individuals have when we come together." And Arianna Huffington writes, "Put away your Prozac and pick up The Impossible Will Take a Little While."

---Bonnie Raitt & Howard Zinn
[Ed. Note: See the chapter from this book – "Staying the Course" by Mary Wynne Ashford.]

Confessions of a God Seeker: A Journey to Higher Consciousness
by Ford Johnson, One Publishing, Inc., 2003, $25.95

Ford Johnson has written a fascinating account of his spiritual and intellectual journey from the inner circles of Eckankar to a radically different understanding of the nature of the universe, divinity, and our place within the whole. Confessions of a God Seeker assembles the puzzle pieces that answer the questions: -Why are we here? Is there a spiritual purpose to life? What’s the connection between spirituality and science? The book offers striking interpretations of the history of the Gospels, Eckankar, Shabd Yoga, and other religions. It outlines a new spiritual paradigm explaining who we are as spiritual beings and our relationship with God.

This book is really only for sincere seekers, like Ford, who wish to expand their own explorations of the meaning of life, and who are willing to go wherever the search for truth takes them. There is an edge to the many criticisms of Eckankar in the book that smacks of the betrayed and disillusioned lover. But, by and large, the book is a rewarding excursion into liberating and mind-expanding fields of contemplation.

---Miriam Knight 

101 Things I Wish I Knew When I Got Married
by Linda and Charlie Bloom, New World Library, California, 2004, $14.95

The forward to this book sold me because it keys into one of my pet peeves. It discusses the multitude of myths surrounding love, such as "meant for each other" and the movie version of "happily ever after." The forward by Kathlyn and Gay Hendricks asks the reader to "acknowledge any of the romantic movies you’ve conspired to create in your own life..." In a long-term relationship of my own, I find that repeatedly I bump up against those myths of what love or marriage is, whether they were fostered by movies and books, other popular culture or my own family of origin.

This rather simply designed book is a series of statements or "rules," a sort of daily meditation for relationship. Each is two pages long, with a simple case example following. Some examples of its offerings are: "creating a great marriage generally takes more time and effort than it seems it should" "there’s a difference between sex and intimacy" and "the fire of infatuation has to cool before mature love can develop." They seem realistic, balanced and give structure and food for thought about relationships. Would anyone live by all 101 of these lessons all the time? Maybe not, but they are at least nuggets of wisdom to chew on. "True love", they point out, is what happens AFTER the movie is over, when the audience goes home, and the actors and actresses are left with "only" themselves and their relationship.

---Alaina Zipp

 

Hands That Heal
by Echo Bodine, New World Library 2003 , $12.95

Perhaps you’ve wanted to get into hands-on healing, but haven’t known where to start. Reiki, Polarity Therapy, Therapeutic Touch…and the list goes on. Perhaps all the styles and choices can make it seem a little intimidating. If so, Echo Bodine’s books might be a good place for you to start. Echo presents her approach to healing very simply and clearly. In fact, she suggests that there is very little to "learn" about hands-on healing; rather being an open conduit for Spirit is the most important thing. She suggests some healing positions and offers some helpful hints for making yourself or your client more comfortable. She stresses, however, that the most important thing is simply to let God work through your hands. This will be very refreshing and helpful for a beginner who simply wants to get started.

Echo has been a healer for over thirty years, and she shares many interesting stories and lessons from her clients. Just as intriguing as the miraculous healings are those clients who choose not to heal, or follow a more convoluted path to healing. Written in an easy-to-read style, this book is definitely has much to offer to anyone on a healing path.

---Sarah Saito

 

Learning Their Language: Intuitive Communication with Animals and Nature
by Marta Williams, New World Library, 2003, $14.95

What animal lover hasn’t felt the pain of leaving their animal companions at home for work or vacation? This book will help you deal with that anxiety by teaching you how to keep in touch with your animals even when you can’t be with them. Williams has many years of experience with intuitive animal communication and shares many interesting anecdotes from her years in this field.

Williams takes the reader step-by-step through the communication process of learning to speak with animals. The exercises are clearly explained and easy to follow, with verifiable results. The author covers different areas of communication such as caring for sick or dying animal companions, finding lost animals and dealing with problem animal behavior.

As stated in the title, Williams devotes some space to communicating with plants and nature, but this section is more intuitive and less developed than the rest of the book. The true focus of the book is on animal communication and at this the author excels. Even readers who are not interested in communicating with animals and just enjoy reading animal stories will enjoy this book.

---Deborah Kingry

 

Messages From The Archetypes
by Toni Gilbert, White Cloud Press 2004, 16.95

For many people, Tarot conjures up images of dark corners and shadowy figures. You pay your money, someone tells you what your future holds and you might not like what you learn.

If this is your impression of Tarot, perhaps it’s time to shine a little light into that dark corner and reveal Tarot for what it is and can be—a tool for personal exploration and growth. Toni Gilbert has been actively involved with Tarot in her healing practice for over a decade, and her expertise shows. Rather than working in the future, she stresses that Tarot is most useful for understanding the Now. Through working with the images on the cards, the conscious mind is put in touch with an accurate picture of a current situation or problem. Once the picture is presented clearly, the mind is better equipped to look for and understand solutions or ideas for changing the situation, also suggested through the cards. The person is able to look at the cards they have chosen and let the images speak to them directly, with guidance only as necessary. As the message of each card is understood and absorbed, the resulting dialogue can be very therapeutic, helping to resolve even a seemingly difficult problem with surprising ease. Gilbert shows how this process works with clear explanations and by including many examples from clients she has worked with.

Whether your purpose is to learn enough to find a Tarot practitioner to help you in your healing process, or to work with Tarot yourself, this book is a good place to start. A simple history of the Tarot cards and explanations of the Major Arcana, Court Card levels, and Minor Arcana are all included. Simple directions for various card spreads will help you experiment with giving yourself or a friend a Tarot card reading. Before you know it, your mysterious impressions of Tarot can be replaced by confidence in your ability to pick out a deck and use it as a profound tool for your spiritual growth.

---Sarah Saito

 

The Spiral of Memory and Belonging, A Celtic Path of Soul and Kinship
by Frank MacEowen, New World Library, 2004, $14.95

You might be drawn, as I was, by this book’s lyrical name and by the author’s previous book, The Mist-Filled Path. Frank MacEowen has written this book with the same beautiful language and flowing descriptions as his previous book on Celtic spirituality. Again, this book narrates some of his own shamanic experiences and provides instructions for someone to do their own journeying.

Some of the main reasons I find this book pleasing are some of the less talked about themes that occasionally pop up in workshops and rarely in books. He addresses things like what to do if the traditional "eyes closed, lie down and listen to music" doesn’t work for you in meditation, an issue I have rarely heard addressed by teachers. MacEowen devotes a whole chapter to topics that could help challenge the "only one way is the right way" mindset.

I was also refreshed that the author addressed the issue of connecting with blood and cultural ancestors even if one has no intellectual information about them, whether due to adoption or non-verbal history within a family. Again, I have heard this question crop up from individuals, but rarely heard it addressed by teachers.

Lastly, I enjoyed that in the last pages of his book, MacEowen has a chapter titled

Indigenous Prophecies and Global Initiation, giving information about various cultures and their shared beliefs about the future. I particularly enjoyed this because I believe that one of the positives about "new-age" philosophies is the belief that even one’s own system is not "the only proper one." I find information about other cultures similarities and differences (though I have no way of knowing whether it is correct or not) to be refreshingly global. As one might guess, all in all, I found this book to be a delightfully soothing and refreshing read; a lovely companion to the author’s previous "Mist Filled Path."

---Alaina Zipp

 

The Comfort Trap, or What If You’re Riding a Dead Horse
by Judith Sills, PhD. Viking Press, 2004, 23.95.

The concept (and title) is oh so appealing, how to figure out if you should finally throw in the towel on your (fill in the blank) job/marriage/friend/dreams and move on. This author claims she can help you do just that, in only 7 easy steps. These steps (also the snappy chapter titles, prove my long-standing belief that one of the keys to getting a self-help book published is just having catchy titles. They are: face what hurts, create a vision, how do you know if the horse is dead, look back but don’t stare, let go, break the comfort barrier and pray to god and row to shore.

One of her basic tenets is "there is no right decision; you just have to make a decision and deal with the repercussions. While it initially seems almost silly, there is a lot of sense to this book. Most people stuck in the midst of having to decide something say "I want to make the RIGHT decision," and the relief of being told there is no one right one, and that there will be hard things about any decision can be freeing.

I have found myself, despite my initial snickerings, recommending this book to quite a few people. It talks about an interesting and fairly universal topic, which is often overlooked.

--- Alaina Zipp

 

This Time I Dance! : Trusting the Journey of Creating the Work You Love
by Tama J. Kieves, Putnam, 2002, $19.95

This wonderful book is essential for anyone who feels a desire for something more than a forty-hour work week in a job they hate but feel pressured to keep; anyone who knows they exist for something more; anyone who wants to dance their life.

Although the book tells the author’s own story of leaving her law practice to follow her dreams, it is written so as to inspire readers to take their own personal plunge into bliss. She writes with humor and honesty about her daily struggles, the pitfalls she encountered, and the steps she took to move through her fear to a life of joy and doing what she loves. For example, instead of suggesting that you have a long-term plan to concentrate on (something budding dreamers might have difficulty with) she suggests focusing on the one clear step in front of you, and then the next. This book will take you from your first tentative hopes for something more to an active life of creative living.

The book itself is charming. The cover art is an eye-catching Melissa Harris piece and the chapters are broken into easy to absorb concepts. This book is entertaining enough to read in one sitting or perfect for daily doses of creative inspiration.

---Deborah Kingry

 

Other Media

Kumbh Mela, Short Cut to Nirvana
A film by Nick Day and Maurizio Benazzo, www.melafilms.com

Nothing short of a trip to India can prepare you for this extraordinary feature length documentary about the Kumbh Mela – the biggest and oldest gathering of people in the history of humanity. Every 12 years, for over two millennia, pilgrims have gathered on the plains near Allahabad, India for a spiritual festival. Try to imagine a pilgrimage where 70 million intensely fervent devotees come to camp at the place where Ganges and Yamuna rivers join the mythical Saraswati. The logistics alone are staggering. You thread your way with the filmmakers through the impossibly colorful throngs, accompanied by a dizzying cacophony of sound to feel the overwhelming intensity of this surreal happening.

Some of the demonstrations of faith are so extreme that we might cringe – like an ascetic sadhu who has held his arm in the air for over 20 years, or the obligatory bed, or in this case, throne of nails swinging over burning coals. There was a group of sadhus whose specialty was lifting great weights with steel rods around which they had wrapped their penises, and a Japanese nun who was buried in a pit for three days.

One can only sit in openmouthed astonishment at the variety and incredible extremes that people will go to in the hope of finding enlightenment and approaching the divine. With great sensitivity, the film puts into relief the universal questions of the spirit and records the answers of gurus, fakirs, pilgrims, skeptics and even the Dalai Lama.

The greatest triumph of the film, perhaps, is how it manages to convey the joy, exhilaration and sacredness of the personal experience against the overwhelming scale of this amazing event.

---Miriam Knight

 

Music Of The Heart
CD by Alan Peterson

Alan Peterson's second solo album has 14 tracks of his original songs that are truly "from the heart". From the opening title cut, and songs like "Follow Your Dreams", to the final Fly (911), Peterson lets the listener know that we are living in a world filled with love and hope. There are also some more traditional love songs here, his "Circle Of Love" and the lovely, "Everything I had in Mind" are both wonderful tributes to the bond between committed individuals. (Both songs are from Peterson's unique wedding ceremony he has been performing the last couple of years). The CD includes some country fun with "Wishin' and A Hopin'", a tribute to the late George Harrison in "Eastern Wind" and a number of songs with Peterson's band, Harmonic Convergence, featuring their unique three part harmony. All in all, "Music Of The Heart" is a great mix of styles and sounds and a wonderful sampling of the music that comes from the heart of Alan Peterson.

www.alan peterson.net