2010 Book Year in Review

I kept a running list of books I read in 2010. Did actually end up hitting the 100 book mark, without realizing it until I sat down to type them up! In addition to the books I read, I also listened to at least 15 audio books. My list is not actually in order of how I read them, but in order of how I jotted them on my notepad! In 2010, I read:

1. Small Gods (fiction, book club. Kind of good)
2. The Red Tent (third time I've read it, this time for book club. Like it very much!)
3. The Lacuna (book club. Very disappointing, because I usually love Barbara Kingsolver).
4. Womanspirit: A guide to women's wisdom (second reading, much enjoy)
5. Birth--an anthology of ancient texts, songs, prayers, and stories (disappointing)
6. Simplicity Lessons: 12 Step Guide to Living Simply (we worked through this book month-by-month in 2009 and then finished it in the early part of the year. Pretty good, but nothing new).
7. Women's Spirituality Book
8. Coming to Term (miscarriage and pregnancy-after-loss. Good, interesting)
9. The Grace in Dying (very good!)
10. U is for Undertow (for fun!)
11. My Name is Mary Sutter (very excellent historical fiction about a midwife/Civil War nurse)
12. Dance of the Womb (prenatal belly dance)
13. Brought to Earth by Birth (photo essay/lyrical ode to birth)
14. Wild Feminine (loved it! Very recommended)
15. A Silent Sorrow (miscarriage)
16. Pregnancy Loss
17. Miscarriage: Women's Experiences and Needs
18. Women's Rituals (read twice)
19. Circle Round
20. The Joy of Family Ritual
21. Pregnant Woman's Comfort Book (twice)
22. Avoiding Miscarriage
23. Painless Childbirth
24. The Women's Retreat Book (loved it. Highly recommended)
25. The Woman's Comfort Book
26. A Woman's Book of Rituals and Celebrations (twice. Very good!)
27. Mindful Motherhood
28. Survivor Moms
29. Birthing a Mother
30. Readings for Women's Programs (really enjoyed this. Used it for a class)
31. Your High Risk Pregnancy (read to review, did not enjoy and wish I hadn't read while also pregnant!)
32. Our Seven Principles in Story and Verse (UU)
33. In Nature's Honor (lots of ideas for seasonal celebrations)
34. Seven Times the Sun (so-so. Waldorfy book about creating home rhythms)
35. Sandra Dodd's Big Book of Unschooling (some great stuff, some annoying stuff)
36. The Year of Living Biblically (for book club. So-so. Funny).
37. Tending the Flame--The Art of UU Parenting
38. The Dance of the Dissident Daughter (second reading, enjoyed again)
39. FatherBirth
40. The Doctor and the Diva (did not really like. Fiction about early artificial insemination techniques, annoyingly dramatized, supposed to review but it didn't match my audience).
41. Dancing with Goddess (x's two)
42. Childbirth with Insight (an oldie and goodie. I'm getting ready to re-read this one)
43. An Easier Childbirth (third reading)
44. Active Birth (another classic!)
45. Secrets of Confident Childbirth
46. Immaculate Deception II (second reading)
47. Prodigal Summer (book club. Also Barbara Kingsolver and pretty good, though not my favorite one from her).
48. Labyrinth of Birth (new edition from Pam England. Very good. Getting ready to re-read)
49. Goddesses, Witches, and the Paradigm Shift (a collection of dramatic readings. Going to do a presentation from this at church for Women's History Month).
50. Optimal Birth (very long. Good).
51. The Alchemist (barely remember. oops!)
52. Mothervoices (??)
53. I Wish I Had a Read Dress (fiction, book club, second reading. Enjoyed).
54. The Feminine Mistake: Are we giving up too much? (thought-provoking)
55. Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Newborn (new edition)
56. Living without Reservations (travel/simple living memoir. Enjoyed).
57. The Queen's Cloak
58. Wild Girls
59. Sacred Dimensions of Women's Experience (interesting)
60. The Wheel of Life and Death (interesting)
61. Birthing Ourselves into Being
62. Birthing from Within (approximately 6th reading. All-time favorite birth book for sure!)
63. Siesta Lane (simple living memoir, not what I expected).
64. The Patron Saint of Liars (fiction, forgettable)
65. The Joy of Pregnancy
66. Having a Baby, Naturally (second reading)
67. Finding Your Own North Star
68. Waiting (journal of pregnancy after loss)
69. The Shallows (book club, so-so).
70. Un-Jobbing (third or so reading, like it).
71. Courageous Parents, Confident Kids
72. Rediscovering Birth (second reading, lots of good pix, good anthropological look at birth culture)
73. The Politics of Women's Spirituality (really enjoyed, very long and dense and took AGES to finish reading. I worked on it for about four months, I think!)
74. Child of the Northern Spring (fiction about Guinevere for book club. Did not really like. Boring).
75. Goddess Spirituality at the Crossroads (first book read on my new Kindle! Really liked it. A collection of columns from a no-longer-published journal of women's spirituality).
76. The Roots of Natural Mothering (so-so)
77. The Goddess Companion (did daily readings from this over course of entire year--it is 365 meditations)
78. Simple Abundance (used this same way as above).
79. Introduction to Human Services textbook for class.
80. Child Welfare textbook for class
81. Effective Group Discussion textbook for class
82. Groups: Process and Practice textbook for class
83. Memoirs of a Singing Birth (e-book)
84. Understanding the Dangers of a Cesarean Birth (for review)
85. Great Gals (book/journal)
86. Understanding Pregnancy and Birth (very basic)
87. Breastfeeding Facts for Fathers (booklet)

These, I can't remember if I actually read in 2010, or just wrote reviews of in 2010:
88. 25 Ways to Joy & Inner Peace for Mothers
89. Pregnant on Prozac
90.She Births
91. Get Me Out
92. L’Mazeltov
93. Birth Day
94. Birth Space, Safe Place

And, these, I found on a separate list and realized I DID read 100 books in 2010 after all!

95. The Geography of Bliss (book club)
96. The Life Organizer (loved it)
97. Listening to Our Bodies
98. The Feminine Face of God
99. YogaFit (for prenatal yoga teacher training)
100. Heart of the Goddess (pictures/painting and accompanying stories)
101. Really, Truly Ruthie (American Girl book)
102. Meet Rebecca (AG)
103. Meet Julie (AG)
104 The Vagina Warriors ($1 Shop find)
105. The Inner Dance (guided meditations. Did not like).

Woot! On to 2011! I have about 15 books in progress right now ;-D

UU World Quotes

I know I don't have time for this blog anymore. The best I can do is pop in with quotes every once in a while, with no time really to explain why they struck me.

From UU World magazine in an article titled The Cathedral of the World:

"A twenty-first-century theology based on the concept of one Light and many windows offers to its adherents both breadth and focus. Honoring many different religious approaches, it only excludes the truth-claims of absolutists. That is because fundamentalists claim that the Light shines through their window only. Some go so far as to beseech their followers to throw stones through other people’s windows.

Skeptics draw the opposite conclusion. Seeing the bewildering variety of windows and observing the folly of the worshipers, they conclude that there is no Light. But the windows are not the Light. They are where the Light shines through."

Quotes like this are why I am a UU and why I was drawn so strongly to UUism. I spent approximately 27 years of my life feeling like organized religion "disagreed" with me and I, frankly, wanted very little to do with it. I did not feel like my spiritual beliefs "fit" anywhere. Then, lo and behold, I discovered that I DO have a fit. A very, very good one. I never expected to "get religious" at this point in my life, but what really happened is that I discovered I've actually been a UU all along, I just didn't know there was a name for it. :)

Also in the same issue was a nice prayer to be used a dinner or other gatherings:

"Spirit of Life, we remember...(insert negative things that are relevant--poverty, hunger, etc.), and we are grateful for...(insert food, company, program, other noteworthy positive things.) Blessed be and Amen."

Quote from Ode

Trying to clear out my pile of magazines, etc. and before I pass it along, I wanted to share this quote from Ode Magazine in an article called The Reason of Faith (the article was about "why people need religion" and was a semi-scholarly [instead of theistic] response to recent books about atheism):

"And when you try to mix science and religion you get bad science and bad religion. The two are doing different things....Science can give you a diagnosis of cancer. It can even cure your disease, but it cannot touch your grief and disappointment, nor can it help you to die well."

Recent Reads

So, even though I've basically discontinued this blog, I still want to keep it updated periodically as a record of what I've been reading.

In the last couple of weeks, I've read:

Permission to Mother--short little natural mothering vignettes by a doctor and mother of three boys.

The Doula Guide to Birth--enjoyed it. Reviewed it for CfM and for CAPPA.

The Milk Memos--based on a series of notebooks kept by mothers pumping milk in the lactation room at IBM. I bought this at the LLL of MO conference this summer. A section I marked was about having "Etch-a-Sketch brain"--"she'd mentally jot down tasks throughout the day, only to find them suddenly wiped out and gone forever with the slightest 'shake up.'"

Fathers-To-Be Handbook--reviewing for CAPPA. A quick little "road map" for transitioning into fatherhood and a good resource for childbirth educators.

Awakening to the Dream--one of those semi-enlightening, semi-annoying Zen live-in-the-now books.

The Millionth Circle--a lightning quick read about women's circles (and how once we get to the millionth circle, patriarchy will be over and the world will be transformed). Liked two quotes: "Feminism catches fire when it draws upon its inherent spirituality. When it does not, it is just one more form of politics, and politics never fed our deepest hungers." --Carol Lee Flinders

and

Show up or choose to be present.
Pay attention to what has heart and meaining.
Tell the truth without blame or judgment.
Be open to outcome, not attached to outcome.

--Angela Arrien


62

I give up! Letting go...

...of this blog. Or, at least of my old vision for this blog. I do not have time for it any more and it has been more of a chore than anything for quite some time. I still want to keep a log of my yearly readings, so I think I'll keep posting periodically, but almost as more of a list than anything interesting. I do not have very many readers here and my other blog projects feel more important than this one--this was a hobby-blog really, or just for fun, and fun is usually what I let go of! Also, I have that depressing sense of adding to the virtual cacophony of voices with it and where's the value in that? This isn't the only thing I'm going to let go of, I've got to go through my life priorities and make some more cuts. This is just the easy one, because I've felt it kind of draining me for a while.

I really enjoy the book The Mother's Guide to Self-Renewal and I get the author's email newsletter. In the most recent issue--titled Do You Love Your Life?--it posed the following questions:

Are you living the life you've always wanted? Do you feel like you're the master of your life or the slave to it? Does how you spend your time reflect where your priorities lie or do you feel like your life is a list of "should's"?

Here are some questions for you (and if applicable, your partner) to consider:

• What do you value most in life right now (ex: time, relationships, flexibility, a short commute, your community)?
• Where does the majority of your energy go on a daily basis (work, household management, relationships, parenting, spiritual renewal, your to-do list)?
  
• Does your life feel a)overwhelming, b)barely manageable, c)occasionally hectic or d)pretty simple? (Check out these great tips for simplifying.)
  
• If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing that would significantly impact your quality of life, what would it be?
  
• What are three actions you could take right now to radically simplify your life and create more space, ease and flow in your day-to-day experience?

-----
These are good questions to consider...as I answered some of them, I duly noted that "write Molly Reads... blog" wasn't on there! ;-)

I've referenced before how I have kind of a black and white view of my tasks/commitments. If I cannot give something my all, it eats and picks at me until I decided to cut my losses and move on. I can't just leave something and say, "I'll work on this later, when I have more time. I have to make the cut. I have to quit. I have to totally dump it! So, I'm not sure if my only-post-a-list/sentence plan will actually work, or if it will continue to lurk in my brain as an unfinished to-do until I truly shut it down for good.

And some more...

"Be broad-minded,
Whole, without relying
On others."

--Hongzhi Zhengjue

"With gentleness,
Overcome anger.
With generosity,
Overcome meanness.
With truth,
Overcome delusion."

--The Dhannapada

More Zen

"Peace does not dwell in outward things, but within the soul; we may preserve it in the midst of the bitterest pain, if our will remains firm and submissive. Peace in this life springs from acquiescence, not in an exemption from suffering."

--Francis Fenelon


"Most people believe the mind to be a mirror, more or less accurately reflecting the world outside them, not realizing on the contrary that the mind is itself the principal element of creation."

--Rabindranath Tragore

Ode

I may have mentioned before that I love Ode magazine ("for intelligent optimists"). I sort of accidentally ended up subscribing to it about threeish years ago and I'm a fan. I saved two recent issues (there are 10 a year) and brought them along to read on the plane during our just-completed trip to California. The August issue had a theme of "Laughter" and I really enjoyed it. I marked the following quote to share from the article "In the beginning was the joke: why cheerfulness is next to godliness":

"So what are we here for? Your modern neo-Darwinist is perfectly certain--for no reason. That just doesn't cut it for me...I prefer this take by the composer Aaron Copland (simply replace the word 'music' with the word 'life'): 'The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, 'Is there a meaning to music?' My answer would be 'Yes.' And 'Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?' My answer to that would be, 'No.'"

Thoughts on Thinking

Today is our 11th wedding anniversary! There is time only for zen quotes...

"Inner peace is the key: if you have inner peace, the external problems do not affect your deep sense of peace and tranquility...Without this inner peace, no matter how comfortable your life is materially, you may still be worried, disturbed, or unhappy because of circumstances."

--Dalai Lama

"In the root and stem of your own psyche, there is an accumulation of bad habits. If you cannot see through them and act independently of them, you will unavoidably get bogged down along the way."

--Yuansou

"We spend most of our time and energy in a kind of horizontal thinking. We move along the surface of things...but there are times when we stop. We sit still. We lose ourselves in a pile of leaves or its memory. We listen, and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper."

--James Carroll

Present Moment

"If we could see the miracle
of a single flower clearly,
our whole life would change."

--Buddha

"Our true home is in the present moment.
To live in the present moment is a miracle.
The miracle is not to walk on water.
The miracle is to walk on the green Earth
in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and
beauty that are available now."

--Thich Nhat Hanh

Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering

This week I finished reading a couple of books. I'd looked forward to reading Sarah Buckley's Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering for a long time. It used to only be available from Australia and the shipping was prohibitive. The U.S. edition came out this past edition and I finally bought it for myself. It was a good book, don't get me wrong, but a lot less creative/inspirational/unconventional than I expected. I was expecting one of those phenomenal birth books that really "goes beyond," but much of the content was a review of the literature/research basically and was actually fairly dry. I loved reading her birth story and her placenta story and her breastfeeding story. There was good evidence-based information about several topics--gestational diabetes, GBS, VBAC, cord clamping, for example--that will definitely make it into my birth blog posts. It is definitely a book worth having. It also seems to be written for the first-time mother who perhaps has had little prior exposure to/information about evidence-based maternity care.

I also finished reading Mother Blessings: Honoring Women Becoming Mothers, which was one of my birthday presents this year from my mom. I'm going to a mother blessing tomorrow, so this was a timely read :) It had a couple of new ideas in it for me like making "birth dolls" together (cool!) and also a family mandala project that sounded really neat (I think I will do it with my kids instead of at a mother blessing).

And, I finished reading The Answer: Making Sense of Life, One Question at a Time. Sections were interesting, but overall I found it kind of "shallow." The author made extensive pop-culture references that I found kind of self-conscious and forced--like, "look how hip I am!" or something. You couldn't go more than two pages without the SAME SENTENCE--"as XYZ musician might sing...[lyrics related to the life question at hand]." Lots of references to tv shows, movie dialog, etc. It grated on my nerves. The central idea was cool though--life is a question and you are an answer--and the author had some good insights to share as well. In the section about "am I missing something?" (which I identified with--that urge to stay "caught up" and make sure I'm not missing anything important!) she said after mentioning Schubert's Eighth Symphony (The Unfinished Symphony), "Because you are full of unlimited potential you will always have more music in you, and yet what you have already composed can stand on its own if you're willing to let it." (emphasis mine). As you may recall, one of my favorite quotes is about not dying with you music still in you. I loved this reminder about what I've already composed :)

That's all I have time for today! Time for 4th of July BBQ, cotton candy, and fireworks!

52

Yes...

I'm going to be out of town this weekend at a conference and thus unable to post about any books (weirdly though, I haven't finished ANY this week--I'm in the middle of several).

So, all I have to offer this week are some quotes from last year's Zen calendar:

"So let your awareness be vast and inclusive as if the whole world is taking plac einside your mind. Hear everything, see everything, feel everything with this simple greeting on your lips 'Yes.'"

--Gary Rosenthal

"A happy life consists of tranquility of mind."
--Cicero

"You shouldn't allow yourself
to be confused by others.
Act when you need to,
without further hesitation or doubt.
People today can't do this.
What is their affliction?
Their affliction is in their
lack of self-confidence."
--Linji

Small openings...

A couple of weeks ago at the church, the topic was "The Purpose Driven Life, or: Why Do You Get Up in the Morning?" (originally a sermon given at the UU church of Fort Myers, FL). Anyway, I liked how it opened: "The above question stirs in that 'frighteningly honest' 'small opening into the new day which closes the moment you begin your plans.' How you answer it is what gets you going, keeps you focused, and convinces you life's worth all the effort." I realized that I rarely get a chance to notice that "small opening" in the new day any more--I have to hop up and get down to work too quickly. What I've observed in the past is that each day dawns with a sense of optimism and promise and like, "the world is spread out before me and what a wonderful place it is!" but that I can quickly get derailed or lose that sense of "wonder" and get bogged in minutinae (which reminds to remember my "elimination of nonessentials" quote from a few posts ago--it is my new favorite quote to help keep me on track).

I'm so Zen...

I read several books this week, but alas, my time for blogging today has evaporated, so I'm going to share three quotes from my Zen calendar. I carefully picked these out, because they contain important reminders/lessons for me (lately I feel like my life has accelerated even more and I'm scrambling to stay "on top" of everything--however, perhaps it is also Zen to accept this as part of the natural ebbs and flows of life...):

"Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is a nobler art of leaving things undone...The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials."

Lin Yutang

"Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like."

Lao-tzu

"Life is a succession of moments. To live each one is to succeed."

--Corita Kent

All the Gifts of Life

I borrowed two books from my church last week and read them both over the weekend (both were quick little books). The first was Notes to Myself: My struggle to become a person by Hugh Prather. It was so-so. In keeping with my previous post about identity, selfhood/selflessness, personality, etc., I marked several relevant quotes to share:

"While I am worrying about what you think of me I am not open to you, I am not letting you in; in fact, I am not letting you exist as a person--I am making you my mirror. While I am concerned with what you are thinking about me I am not even thinking about you."

"I learn most about myself by observing myself in relation to others. When I examine myself by myself I am actually examining the results of a previous encounter. Perceptions are not of things but of relationships. Nothing, including me, exists by itself--this is an illusion of words. I am a relationship, ever-expanding."

"People in cars passing by my car, people walking past me on the street, someone leaving a shop as I enter, Gayle coming through the door from work, Willie getting his mail as I get mine, and with each one of these little brushings-against, these encounters big and small, I leave something behind. If I can feel what I pick up from them, certainly on some level they can feel my state also. What, then, is the trail behind me composed of? Does not this 'gift to the world,' by its very enormity, outweigh all others?"

I have a particular interest (and a complicated partially written essay) about gratitude and "you're so lucky" type comments, so I also marked a quote about that:

"The thought, 'You're lucky, it could have been worse,' is the kind of gratitude I can do without. It also could have been better, or actually, it couldn't have been any other way than the way it was."

The second book was All the Gifts of Life. It was a collection of short essays/meditations by a couple of different UU authors. One was about "detachment" and whether it is desirable or not:

"It is only through our detachment that we are able to rend the ozone layer, poison the air and the seas, exterminate whole species of animals, and burn the rain forests. There are times when some detachment is appropriate and necessary. But the greatest source of evil in our time may be that we are too detached from people, and too detached from the earth. If we meet everything objectively, then there is no sacredness and no mystery."

I thought this was an interesting twist--people are often urged to "be objective" and it is interesting to consider what kind of detachment that promotes.

The second page I marked was kind of a take-off of the classic Ecclesiastes "for everything there is a season...":

The Light can represent the light of Spirit that ebbs and flows inside us as we feel sometimes drained and dusty, and other times energetic, enthusiastic, and supple. Some times in our lives are spirited times and others are dispirited times. As we contemplate the meanings of the dark times and the light times, the earth-based traditions would caution us against using The Dark as a symbol for all that is negative. If we use 'darkness' to speak about ignorance, depression, and evil, we speak as if it would be best to have no darkness at all, to have light all the time. That would be awful. there is a season for dark and a season for light.

Is it possible then that there is a time to feel energetic and a time to feel drained in the rhythm of life? A time to let life and energy flow outward from you, and a time for it to flow inward? Maybe the ebb and flow of Spirit is a rhythm that is good to feel. Maybe in our growing into wholeness there is a time to feel dusty and dry, 'hard as iron' like the winter ground, and stony as winter water. Maybe instead of worrying and suffering over those feelings we could settle into them, knowing that there is a time for cold and time for warmth, a time to be energetic and a time to rest, a time to grow and a time to stay where you are, a time for the light of reason and a time for other ways of knowing. Maybe we could walk in beauty and balance more easily if we could welcome the dark time, trusting that when it reaches its full strength, things will begin their tilt back in the other direction. Nothing stays the same in the flow of things. All things seek their balance and their rhythm. The wheel will always turn...

36

Zen Quotes

I'm gone this week, so I've set up to post some saved quotes from my trusty $1 Shop Zen calendar from last year:

"It is not length of life, but depth of life."

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

"A contented mind is a hidden treasure, and trouble findeth it not."

--Akhenaton

"Do you imagine the universe is agitated? Go into the desert at night and look at the stars. This practice should answer the question."

--Lao-tzu

And one that makes me think of the birth culture in the United States:

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."

--Krishnamurti

Other Recent Reads

I am accepting that I will not have time to write about every book I've read. So, I just wanted to mention some recent ones (two of them I plan to blog about elsewhere).

Birthwork--this was a masterpiece of a book. Took me ages to finish, because it was very complex. I've never read a book like it. It was really extraordinary. I've already written a bit about it on my birth blog and I will again. Plus, I will be writing a complete review for CfM.

Women and Doctors--this is an older book written by a doctor and covers the anti-women attitudes that many doctors have bred into them in medical school. Also talks a lot about hysterectomies and how they are extremely overperformed. I'm going to be writing about this one on the CfM blog for sure.

Innovative Teaching Strategies Handbook for Birth Professionals--this was a quick read and I got several good ideas from it. I think I will use one of the breastfeeding demonstration ideas for an LLL meeting soon.

The Secret Life of Amanda K. Woods--I read this after I finished Birthwork. I was immediately going to jump into another heavy read and realized I needed a quick break. This is a young adult book about an 11 year old girl in rural WI the 1950's. For some reason it made me cry several times. I read it in an hour.

What Do Buddhists Believe?--This was a short book about "meaning and mindfulness in Buddhist philosophy." I was familiar with most of the ideas already (but that kind of makes me an empti-full cup!).

A quote from this one I liked when talking about various turning points in the history of world thought (like Newton and gravity or the Buddha and his enlightenment under the tree): "...these seekers after truth did not find anything that had not been there before. Theirs was a discovery not an invention. Their genius consisted in realizing for the first time something that had been in front of them all along. It was as if they perceived a deeper layer of reality, a glimpse of the underlying structure of the phenomenal world." This kind of thing makes me wonder about the ideas and concepts yet to be discovered--what is in front of us right now, that we haven't yet figured out, etc. As reading Buddhist stuff always does, I went into a bit of a tailspin about "what is the nature of reality" and "who am I" and "what does no-self really mean" and "if I have no-self then who the heck am I." All questions I've asked before, no answers! I read somewhere else: "if someone says to me that they don't know who they are anymore, I say, good!" So, maybe I'm making progress by feeling like I don't know who I am! (by that, I mean I don't know who I am "ultimately" speaking--is there a core "me," a real reality, or is it just shifting, changing collection of personality traits. I think it is difficult to ever say with any certainty that you know who anyone *really* "is" and the same for yourself. However, this then depresses me somewhat...)

34

More Zen

My mom has an online Zen calendar this year and I wanted to share a quote from it:

"Without staring death in the eye, as the perpetually reverse side of life, we cannot live fully and completely."

--soko morinaga

And edited to add another one:

"Life without zazen is like winding your clock without setting it. It runs perfectly well, but it doesn’t tell time."

--shunryu suzuKi

Christmas books

Finished reading two of my Christmas gifts:

Womanspirit: A Guide to Women's Wisdom--this is another example of an older book with gifts to offer. It was pretty good and I collected several ideas from it to use for future blessingways. It also had several good guided visualization exercises.

Zen Parenting: The Art of Learning What You Already Know--This is snarky of me, but I guess I DO already know it all, because I didn't really learn anything new from this book. I did like this daily Zen practice they suggested:

*Stay.
*Stay with the moment.
*Stay with your attention on your inner awareness.
*Pay attention. Remember, emotions pass. Bodily needs pass.
*What stays is the essence of you and the pure spirit of your child.

Time to get off the computer, because I have piles of more important things to be doing!

Last Child in the Woods

On New Year's Eve, I finished reading Last Child in the Woods. This was the first book for the new book club I'm participating in (Yay! I've always wanted to be in a book club.) The book is about "nature deficit disorder"--basically, that people, especially kids, don't spend enough time outdoors and in nature. It made me think that, even though I live in the country and in the woods, I should go outside more and appreciate being there, as opposed to just heading for the car and town. I also noticed that I think I spent more time outside as a child than my children do now. We had a nice routine going where we spent about two hours outside together every afternoon and then we developed a terrible mosquito problem that changed our routine and drove us to spend more time indoors. Then, even when the weather cooled down again and the mosquitoes died, we were out of the habit of our daily outside time.

Here are some quotes I copied down for our book club discussion:

"What if, instead of sailing to the Galapagos Islands and getting his hands dirty and his feet wet, Charles Darwin had spent his days cooped up in some office cubicle staring at a computer screen? What if a tree fell in the forest and no one knew its biological name? Did it exist?" [I think, yes :)]

"'Reality is the final authority; reality is what’s going on out there, not what’s in your mind or on your computer screen,' says Paul Dayton."

I found this quote refreshing because I read so much Zennish stuff that says reality is a construct and "you create your own reality" and "there is no reality." LOL!

Page 198 quotes from Robert Kennedy Jr.:

"'We’re part of nature, and ultimately we’re predatory animals and we have a role in nature...and if we separate ourselves from that, we’re separating ourselves from our history, from the things that tie use together. We don’t want to live in a world where there are not recreational fishermen, where we’ve lost touch with the seasons, the tides, the things that connect us—-to ten thousand generations of human beings that were here before there were laptops and ultimately connect us to God.' We shouldn’t be worshipping nature as God, he said, but nature is the way that God communicates to us most forcefully. 'God communicates to us through each other and through organized religion, through wise people and the great books, through music and art,' but nowhere 'with such texture and forcefulness in detail and grace and joy, as through creation...And when we destroy large resources, or when we cut off our access by putting railroads along river banks, by polluting so that people can’t fish, or by making so many rules that people can’t get out on the water, it’s the moral equivalent of tearing the last pages out of the last Bible on Earth[emphasis mine]...Our children ought to be out there on the water...This is what connects us, this is what connects humanity, this is what we have in common. It’s not the Internet, it’s the oceans."

From page 285 quoting one of his sons at age four: "Are God and Mother Nature married, or just good friends?" (I LOVE this!)