Welcome to a World of Spiritual Harmony

Barbara G. Walker finished in 1983 a wonderful spiritual reference book: The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. The London Times Education Supplement honored it as its 1986 Book of the Year. I have owned it nearly that long, having started buying these sorts of books once I started on my conscious spiritual journey in 1985.

I like to just flip it open randomly and see what I learn. So I’m doing that right now…to the E’s. Saint Edmund is up first, named as the canonized form of the heathen deity worshipped at Bury St. Edmunds, where he was seasonally slain, like Shiva, in the shape of a white bull.

Then comes Egg, the mystical symbol of the Creatress, whose World Egg contained the universe in embryo. Next is Egg-and-Dart Frieze, a classical architectural decoration, using the magic circle and alternating the symbols for women and men. Too bad there’s not a drawing. Eide means ‘Goddess-within’, the Greek concept for the female soul, corresponding to the Latin Idea. Wow! Who knew?

Next is Eire (variation Erin), the Celtic name of Ireland - I knew those, of course. And finally, El, the general Semitic word or name for a deity, especially in combining forms, as Isra-el, Dani-el, El-ijah.

There’s a lot more information on each of these topics, and each one sheds light on women’s spirituality and on human belief systems down through the ages. Handy, too, when I’m teaching a class and we come up with a question needing research. It’s also super fun when we’re doing Goddess meditations, and good when Goddesses go by more than one name.

A great book to wander through from time to time. Barbara’s written several other good books, as well as a Tarot deck and an I Ching. Always interesting ideas and good thinking.

This book is, by our standards, ancient history as far as travel narrative goes. Written by Robert Byron in the 1930’s (he died way too young during WWII), it is the story of his travels in Afghanistan, Pakistan (before it existed), India, Iraq and Iran, Oxiana being a section of Iran.

Much of what he saw no longer exists, so his pictures are invaluable. He was a great descriptor of buildings and landscapes, and a keen observer of persons and cultures. So much so that Rory Stewart, one of the great cultural narrative writers of our time, wrote the new Preface. (Check out Rory’s Prince of the Marshes if you want to understand Iraq.)

I read this book slowly, savoring the pictures and stories of each town as he traveled through it, his encounters with the high and low of each area. And his often hilarious descriptions of keeping motor vehicles going in these territories at that time. One thing we learn is that bureaucracies do not change. They have different department names in different countries, but the ability of a bureaucracy to make the simple difficult spans a lot of the globe and many generations.

So if you’re looking for a book to savor - and winter is coming, a good time for that - give yourself this book for one of your holiday presents.

So sitting in front of me is young guy with a blazing headache. Brought on pretty much by self-inflicted causes - too much drinking, not enough sleeping, not enough eating of the good kind - and probably not enough eating, period.

He wants an advil, tylenol, something. And of course I don’t have anything like that in the house. I usually have white willow bark, which contains acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin), because I feel that nature has put in the bark all the ingredients that are needed. I don’t care for our habit of extracting the ‘magic bullet’ and letting the rest go - not much wisdom in that, by my reckoning. Don’t even have white willow this time.

He also has no patience with Reiki hands-on healing - 5 minutes is way too long to wait for healing that won’t damage the liver, the way those other things will over time. So I let him go toward his advil.

Hard for me to do. But his choice.

One of the most amazing pieces about the police riot in St. Paul outside the Republican Convention is not just the aftermath, but the pre-math. The police spies infiltrated all those ‘dangerous’ groups - including vegans!

As a pretty-much-vegan in good standing, I am amazed and laughing and angry all at the same time. We are ‘planning’ on saving the globe from drowning in the methane given off by all those stinky cows. We also are about encouraging people to eat grains directly rather than feeding them to cattle first, thus making it possible to feed more folk, which will result in lowering the obesity of the planet.

Most of us, on our way to making the vegan choice, have thought a lot about our own position on a number of issues of the day, and so we do show up at protests, write letters, just plain write. Words are our weapon of choice by and large. We are not dangerous in a physical way, at the 99.999999% level.

But then, most of the folk the cops attacked were word people: journalists high on their list. This certainly changed my whole feeling about the Twin Cities - when their cops are that out of control, the region must not be as calm, liberal, open, wry as I had believed.

Most vegans work against irradiated food, rGbh in milk, genetically modified crops. So we are dangerous to the belief systems that want to make money from those non-natural ‘foods’.

The America I love supports that kind of dissent, absorbs it, changes, moves forward. Sure didn’t look like America in Minnesota that week.

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles: Book One: Dealing with Dragons is the first in a series of four, plus an extra book of short stories, by Patricia C. Wrede. I read them to grandson Patrick when he was somewhere in single digits - absolutely one of the best series we read together.

So there’s a princess, Cimorene by name, the 7th daughter in her household. She was quite disgruntled at being betrothed to a fairly dim prince, and flounced out to the garden to consider. “I’d rather be eaten by a dragon”, she muttered. “That can be arranged,” said a voice from beside her left slipper.

And it goes from there! An hysterically funny cheerful book of disasters, remedies, a very common sense witch, a prince who doesn’t give up and one of the best dragons you’ll ever, ever meet. And when you’re finished with that one, you’ve got more to read. You’ll be so glad.

So when you’re wishing you had an extra room in your house for studying or thinking - you’ll find it in the witch’s house. Take your kid with you!

My grandson, who’s majoring in Theater Tech at the School for Creative and Performing Arts, went with me to see the first Conor McPherson play of the season in Cincinnati this week.

Shining City is an Irish play as the Irish see themselves today. No longing for the glory of the past, nor blaming the English - but how do we get through the day today. I loved the point and counterpoint of the lives of the psychiatrist and his client. I loved the set and how it furthered our understanding. I was stricken at the very real and total lack of awareness of the gay prostitute. The gift of an incredibly ornate lamp was a fine point. I’m not sure that any of the characters had really grown or changed during the play, but they had moved on. I’m ambiguous about that final moment.

This play is at the New Stage Collective, on Main Street where 12th runs into it. Alan Patrick Kenny is the guiding spirit. I was looking forward to seeing where the stage would be this time, and where we as the audience might find ourselves. They surprised me again! Good Job to Ed Cohen, the director. And a good play to see for the rest of us.

Next McPherson is at the Ensemble Theatre in October / November: The Seafarer. Make a plan now.

The Dream Group I’ve been in for nearly 20 years has been at 7 members for the last two or three years, with the addition of a Chinese American at that time. Not much difference in dreams across cultures, but some. There are generally understood meanings for many symbols in dreams, with our own life and cultural experiences coloring those symbols with a layer of personal meanings.

Now we’re back to 6 members - she has been transferred to Philly, and from her dreams and our intuitive drawing of Tarot cards at the end of today’s session, she’s going to be far happier there than here. Not that she was unhappy here, but clearly she’s heading into a brighter future.

Almost everyone in the group is heading into a major shift of one kind or another - work, art themes, a wedding for one and another falling in love. It’s fun to pay attention to dreams, with their information sometimes on what’s coming, mostly on how to handle what’s here right now. A nighttime snapshot of what’s going on in each of our lives.

We’re already planning a Dream Group visit to Philly early next year - it’ll be fun have a gathering in a new city.

The Spiritual Tourist by Mick Brown includes the subtitle: A Personal Odyssey through the Outer Reaches of Belief. Mick is, however, very careful not to get too close to the edge, lest he have a real spiritual experience. He wants to observe, make a little fun of, point out the quirks of all those weird folk who really believe / Know something about Spirit. But heaven forfend he should actually feel Spirit moving in his own life.

He meets authentic spiritual reality (Mother Meera, Mr. Creme / Maitreya, the Dalai Lama), visits the home of Krishnamurti, travels the world over in search of Spirit, terrified that he will find Her.

So, of course, he manages not to. In a couple of spots, he even dispenses spiritual wisdom himself, with quotes from others - ‘Do that which makes you happy to do, and you will do right.’ ‘Always trust to goodness.’ ‘What are you seeking?….the thing you seek is ever at your hand.’

If only he had not been afraid to listen this would have been a terrific book. But true to his sardonic Irish self, Mick managed not to advance along his path, but simply to travel. Better luck next lifetime.

Two good adventure stories rolled into one, Ultimate Journey by Richard Bernstein, details the 17-year journey across Asia and back by Buddhist monk Hsuan Tsang in 629 - already a thousand years after the Buddha died. And it details Bernstein’s own journey now retracing the monk’s footsteps.

I love travel narrative, and if I had just been hungry for that, I would probably have enjoyed this book. But I was hoping to hear spiritual narrative woven in, and none of that was to be found. There was an egregious ‘love story’ - or not - thrown in. It was hard to tell if any commitment was going to be made anywhere.

So no real physical passion, no spiritual passion. Could have been a fabulous book, but it’s not. And there we are!

The U S Open tennis this year just keeps getting better and better - bigger crowds breaking attendance records, hurricane rain disrupting the schedule, making the stories even more dramatic, matches as good as finals from the quarters on. This has been a terrific year!

So Serena beat Venus in the quarters. Roger beat Djokovic in the semis - and looks like the Roger he used to be. For the first time this year. Our Andy - Roddick - got knocked out by Djokovic in a heartbreaker. Andy Murray, over two days, beats Rafael Nadal. Who thought that would ever happen? Rafa must be exhausted - and Andy is on a tremendous learning curve. He’s improved noticeably since playing here in July in the Masters.

And tonite - in a 2-1/2 hour women’s match ending at 11:30 p m - Serena Williams came through against Jelena Jankovich. A real thriller. But if I were Serena, I wouldn’t count on doing it again next year. Jelena is clearly on a big learning curve herself, and got tougher and smarter throughout the match. What a Treat!

Can’t wait for the Monday! 5 p m Men’s Singles Final: Roger Federer against Andy Murray, the young Scot who is one of the few players to have a winning record against Roger. We were all looking forward to a Roger - Rafa match. But I think this one will be great.

You know I’ll keep you posted!