Check out the trailer for the book The Storytelling Animal by Jonathan Gottschall
It's easy to forget how mysterious and mighty stories are. They do their work in silence, invisibly. They work with all the internal materials of the mind and self. They become part of you while changing you. Beware the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world.
Ben Okri, from the beginning of the book Monoculture.
"I wanted only to try to live in accord with the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so difficult?"
From Demian by Hermann Hesse.
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Great book. I absolutely loved reading it. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is a fantastic tale of split brains, multi-dimensional realities, treacherous underworlds, myth, imagination and the immense gravity of love.
It also struck me that the entire book is also a meditation on the world of the Platonic shadow, the daemon, the eidolon, the Underworld and the battle for soul (not in the Christian sense, but more Jungian and Archetypally. Think Partick Harpur’s books instead).
More on that later.
The Marginalia of Illuminated Manuscripts
A great post over at BrainPickings.org highlighting varoius monk’s protests scribbled as marginalia in ancient illuminated manuscripts.
New Read: The Science Of Yoga
So, this book as been getting lots of buzz, a fair amount of criticism—I appreciate Kaminoff’s take on this and his body of work—and many positive nods for talking about essentials issues of safety and looking critically at the real benefits of yoga as backed up by science.
I for one thing too much “science” is a step away from what yoga is about. What I mean is that while yoga clearly has benefits for health, stress levels, well-being, etc., there are intangibles that can only be measured within each yogi as they engage in their practice while engaging themselves on the mat. Ideally, yoga can act as that backwards step Dogen wrote about, a form of moving Zazen with profound benefits.
More after reading.
In Search of the Elusive Murakami
This a wonderful documentary on brilliant Japanse writer Haruki Murakami.
Fascinating take on the 2012 election via The New Republic.
(Hint: The GOP has issues.)
Manduka.com
Manduka is a great yoga brand. And they have wonderfully conscious, and people centered, advertising.
I use their Black Mat Pro. It’s fantastic.
Wislawa Szymborska On The Soul
Nobel Prize winning Poet, Wislawa Szymborska, died today at the age of 88. Her poetry is shockingly beautiful and moving. This is my favorite of her works.
A Few Words On The Soul
We have a soul at times.
No one’s got it non-stop,
for keeps.
Day after day,
year after year
may pass without it.
Sometimes
it will settle for awhile
only in childhood’s fears and raptures.
Sometimes only in astonishment
that we are old.