 |
Book Reviews |
| [ May/June
2003 ] Reviews by Dawn Brunke and Sherry Stultz
Cornell – author of the landmark book Sharing Nature with Children – has led nature awareness workshops throughout the world. He wrote this guidebook for adults not so much to learn facts about nature, but to feel nature. His quotes, meditations, stories and activities are all designed to deepen our feeling response and fine tune our connection to all our relations – animals, mountains, the land, stars, and the earth herself. Arranged as a monthly diary, you can move through this book day by day, or open it randomly and choose a meditation for the moment. The photos by John Hendrickson are luminous, sharp and emotionally engaging. This is a lovely book that speaks softly yet deeply. ~Review by Dawn
Brunke How To Read Signs
and Omens In Everyday Life
Author Sarvananda Bluestone has an unusual past, combining a Ph.D. in history and 20-year career teaching college students to being a disciple, traveling to India with his young daughter to be near the ashram of his teacher, and shuttling between continents and giving psychic readings in the Catskills. This may give you a clue as to why he is also a wonderful author, having integrated his skills as a historian with curiosity about life and an obvious love of games, unusual exercises and ways to see, feel, and sense the world in deeper ways. The book looks at divination techniques from around the world and from many different times, most of which Bluestone adapts and plays with. He offers legends and folk songs, word and number games, strange stories, historical insights and wonderfully juxtaposed quotes. Even the titles are fun to browse: Becoming an Ear; Scissors, Paper and Rock: Feng Shui Style; The Superstition Supermarket; Immersion in Water – A Game for Two. This insightful book is filled with knowledge, awareness and joy. ~Review by Dawn
Brunke Matthew, Tell Me
About Heaven ($15.00) and
Ward continues her
communications with Matthew in a follow-up book called Revelations
for a New Era. In this book, Matthew facilitates communications
between Suzanne and other entities to provide her with greater resources
for her readers. Topics contained in this companion edition vary widely
and include the unique origins of the human population through an
extra-terrestrial seeding program, soul connections and the cumulative
soul, ~ Review by Sherry
Stultz Do you have a book to recommend? Would you like to write a guest book review? Please call or e-mail Dawn Brunke at (907) 373-4667 or wellnesseditor@alaska.com. |
Author
Joseph Cornell asks us to recall a time out in nature when something
special happened – perhaps you witnessed the breathtaking beauty
of mountain alpenglow, the perfection of a wildflower, the graceful
arc of an eagle circling above. In such situations, we are often rejuvenated,
inspired, suddenly opened to a deeper sense of being alive and connected
with all life. These are magical moments, considered rare. But need
they be? Cornell suggests that nature is full of such moments. All
we need do is look, listen – go into nature as Thoreau suggested,
with “abandonment and childlike mirthfulness.”
Signs
are everywhere. Since the beginning of time, insightful observers
have noticed and made use of the patterns in nature as a means to
connect with deeper, higher, more expansive levels of awareness. We
can find signs and omens all around us – in the shapes of passing
clouds, the way tea leaves cling to an upended cup; in the arrangement
of stones or coins tossed from a basket; in the shape of the letters
of our name, the lines on our hand, or the position of the stars.
Our projected perceptions are a window into the deeper nature of ourselves.
Matthew,
Tell Me About Heaven is
an overview of the afterlife channeled by Suzanne Ward via her deceased
son, Matthew, from a realm he calls Nirvana. Suzanne formatted the
communications into an easy-to-read question and answer dialogue.
Suzanne and Matthew discuss what it’s like where he resides,
including how Nirvana functions and what discarnate souls do between
lives.