What are you reading?

My latest find is Acedia and Me, by Kathleen Norris, one of my favorite writers. Acedia, if you don't know, is the "demon of the noonday sun" related to depression, but not quite the same. Depression is when you can't care. Acedia when you just don't want to care, and act on that.

Her insights are incredibly penetrating.

I just finished reading The Psychology of the Internet. It was a fascinating look at things like group dynamics, conflict, anonymity & aggression, gender on the Internet, etc. It's a decade old; however, I found I was still able to relate my current "online" life to the topics she wrote about.

Crazy '08 for the LibraryThing book group we started. I swear I am going to use Baseball examples at the next Cntr for Spiritual Living class. Ah - the meditation of pitching; or better yet, the zen of stealing bases.

Maggie, I have a Tarot deck based on baseball, and it's my favourite one. When I get a card that's called "Caught Stealing" or "Batting a Thousand" I know immediately what they're talking about.

That is so cool. Do you have an ISBN for it? Or the box it came in? Publisher, Title, Author???? I'd love to pick one up.

Baseball Tarot at amazon.

ISBN is 0-7611-0347-3

Thank you very much.

Reading three books - The Moses Heretic, Voices of Older Women - What they want to Say... Why you're not listening and The Moche Warrior
(The first two are review copies that may not be out in print officially yet!)

I ordered the Baseball Tarot - my life rocks!

Readerwoman - Voices of Older Women...has a great title. It is true. I have noticed in the mall I get over looked all the time. Hello....do you want my money? It probably is partially because not only am I old and a woman, I am also short. hehehehehehe

Hey Maggie - I am not very far into it - but it is moving and powerful so far - opens with a poem by the author called Girls with Grandmother Faces. Arloa Jane Walter

Will keep you posted!

Enjoy the Baseball Tarot, maggie. It's so cool.

Welcome, Readerwoman.

Just set Integral Psychology aside. I like Wilber, but he's really tough to read. I'll probably start in on a Jiddhu Krishnamurti book I got recently next. I've never read any of his books before, but my best friend has been trying to get me to read something by him for a while.

Finished Integral Psychology. Now I'm reading Wizard's First Rule, the Great Transformation, and the Wise Heart. Armstrong is one of my favorite authors, and, although this is the first book I've read by either author, Goodkind and Kornfield are quickly becoming favorites as well.

Every day I read some of my husband's poetry.
It is simply the best poetry I know of.
I read it from a self-published book titled:
The Soul of a Poet-Philosopher.
Anyone can read it / download it for free,
by going to http://ecophysics.org
Click on Downloads, then click on Books.
The book is 1,224 pages,
divided into three parts.

Right now, I'm also half way through
The Secret Life of Plants,
by Peter Tomkins and the late Christopher Bird. It is a beautiful book.
While man, in his fear and closure, has tried
to live with the belief that only he has a soul, this book shows that plants don't simply respond to humans' actions and thoughts,
they also have feelings and a soul.
The playing of Indian raga music will increase the number of stomata on the undersides
of leaves by 66% and will significantly increase leaf growth and cytoplasmic streaming, etc.
Some plants that were insulted would 'sulk',
refusing to register any activity on equipment,
for up to two weeks.

This past summer, I read Secrets of the Soil, by the same co-authors and I was so appreciative for all the research and ideas that they had brought together.
They had case histories where plants would actually grow stems and leaves across the length of a house, back and forth across strings, and somewhere along the way they would actually change their species (same genus).
They would even flower, in different colours,
in different rooms, according to the wishes
of the multiple people who cared for them.

I just want to read everything these two have ever written.

We have Christopher Bird's book:
Gaston Naessens: Galileo of the Microscope,
but I have yet to read it.

My husband corresponded, by phone,
with Christopher Bird, back in the early 90's.
Here he was, such an insightful person,
with so much to share, and he had to resort
to sleeping in his office, under his desk.

I really appreciate what Arctic-Stranger wrote about Acedia (above), Oct. 14th, 2008.

Jennifer Gray Charnoe

Blowing through the Power of Kindness but after going so long without any spiritual practice to speak of, it feels nice to get back to spiritual study, even if it is a lightweight.

I'm currently reading "God Is Not One", by Prothero. I don't agree with his overall conclusion, but the book itself has been pretty good so far, and I'm over halfway.
I'm reading a few others, too, but this one is the main one I'm focusing on.

Exoterically God is definitely not one. Few religions talk about God in an outward sense in the same way (the exception being the JudeoChristian-Islamic tradition, but even that is questionable). Esoterically, I disagree with Prothero as well.

At the moment my spiritual reading includes two books the Zen of Listening and Beauty and the Soul. Neither heavy hitters per se, but good reading all the same.