Transforming Reads 2

Especially during these trying time, I recommend this book by Susan Aposhyan. Its subtitle is "Four Steps to Embodied Spirituality." A MOST practical, inviting, simple approach to a way that is most grounding during these difficult and daily unpredictable days, which will continue. There is no going back to what was, so the practices offered here, as well as in many other writings during these times, open ways for anyone to choose and move forward beyond what media presents every day. 

The subtitle of this book is "Four Steps to Embodied Spirituality" and it is written by Susan Aposhyan...it is an important book for this time because it invites us to reconsider the tumultuous worl that has come about, and shows no sign of ending, since CoVid became a reality is so many countries.

A quote from the back cover: "Reading Heart Open, Body Awake" feels like being held, as if this treasure of a book were wrapping its arms about a reader to gently coax into bloom our natural impusle for deep, connected spiritual embodiment."

In the turmoils that greet us and surprise us every day, the guidance and practices offered us by this book are solid, simple and practical, and over time will transform our everyday lives.

This is a book for now, for "Wintering" by Katherine May is what we are all doing during quarantine! It examines through the personal experience of the author "the emotional, spiritual and geographic reality of the cold times, the dark days, and those periods of our lives when things are neither soft nor easy." (Elizabeth Gilbert's review)

I think that this statement might describe these times for us...

"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious" (Carl Jung)

Thirty years ago, I began to explore the writings on the "shadow" living in each human being, one of Jung's major contributions to understanding human nature. I did this mainly through the teachings of Marion Woodman, in books and workshops. Today, all these years later, a friend reading this book reminded me - I actually felt a pull - that it might be time to read some of this again.

And so it turned out to be. Published in 1991 - this group of 65 short articles by major Jungian practitioners of our world fairly jumps off the pages with how prophetically the Shadow described by Jung and in those years thought mainly to be personal, is now operating on global levels, as we watch our world ripped apart daily by war and killings, and by the small mindedness of politicians and many world leaders.

I am finding this collection to be compelling reading, reaching deep into my 71 years of life and experience, and seeing more and more clearly the truth of our present world.

Edith Eger is now 93 years old. When she was 16 she was pulled out of a pile of dead bodies in Auschwitz because her hand moved. The Choice is her story...but it doesn't dwell on her early experience in the camps as it is really about her choice to be and do otherwise. She became a psychotherapist and worked with PTSD sufferers. She went to where Hitler's house was, and forgave him. She still gives talks and has YouTube videos. Nothing is more stark, nor so confronting, for those of us who are held back in our lives for so little compared to Edith's story. And it is so well written I could hardly put it down.

God sends small messengers to peel us open...all my experience...all of it disrupts my conclusions, like pebbles of light dropped into the lake of my mind...Mark Nepo Things That Join the Sea and Sky, p.80.

This book is a companion for Reflection and Prayer, drawing on the centuries of women's hidden devotions and ways of connecting with the sacred in life. From early women-hermits to present-day women who are spiritual teachers, "this refreshing resource widens the mind, deepens the heart, and strengthens the soul...to enter The Sanctuary of Women is to risk deep transformation, proof that this book is a God-gift." (Joyce Rupp)

This book is an invitation to those of us - especially after seventy- to enter into our own "Vesper Time", the title coming from the evening prayer of the daily round of following the day with prayer. Seeing ourselves as embracing the years that are ours with warmth and wisdom and memory and love - thankful and peaceful - this is an invitation counter to the those of our culture, and thereby (for me) wise and welcoming. I simply love this book for where I am in my own life.

Parker Palmer says of this book: " Vesper Time is full of wisdom and guidance for all who want to treat aging as a "school of the spirit" - a time to call upon the sacred alchemy that turns wisdom into strength, loss into gratitude, and dying into new life. Wonderfully well- written, grounded in real-life experience...this is a book for all seasons...

This new and final book by Kathleen Dowling Singh seems prophetic, as she died on October 1, 2017, just as the book was released. This is the real journey to fredom in our interior life; the peaceful movement towards releasing all that has bound us interiorly as we live out the years of our life's unfolding. This description on the back of the book focuses the great invitation to us all:

With poise and grace, Kathleen Dowling Singh points us to that in the human spirit which has never been bound, never been wounded, and has always been an un-selfed shining freedom - the radiant ground that is our diamond life." (Martin Laird)

This gripping novel tells the story of Meg, a young missionary to Chile just in time to witness the overthrow of Salvador Allende. In the aftermath of the brutal military coup the priest she works with is murdered and she herself is the target of surveillance.

The many layers of relationship and the ambivalence of missionary work give this novel depth and relevance, no matter how many years go by after the recounted events. And knowing the author, Judy Ress - her attentive integrity and her faithfulness to the unfolding of true events - made this a compelling read for me.

In fact, I could not stop reading. It is available on Kindle as well as ppbk and hardcover.