Welcome to a World of Spiritual Harmony

I don’t know what’s with me and magazines…. I used to love them. Now I barely look at the 2 longtime subscriptions I have - Vegetarian Times and Tennis. I will usually eventually read Tennis - the gossip, the profiles, the tournament wrap-ups. Vegetarian Times I keep more for the covers, which serve as decor for the coffee table. And I don’t even subscribe to my former favorite, Star Trek.

I subscribed to Ode last year in a weak moment at Christmas. It is really great, positive, uplifting. But I already know most of what’s in it, the stories seem written for folk who are not already deep into this new world, and don’t intrigue me. They got me this month with a Karen Armstrong story mentioned on the cover: Why God is still a good idea. Which, as usual, I argued with all the way through.

Christian Science Monitor was a similar story. Used to be a subscriber to the newsprint version. That’s gone in this recession. So they’ve tried a large news magazine weekly. I felt sorry for them and subscribed. Mistake. It doesn’t offer more or different, and I’m already not reading it.

Part of it is the short format. Just skims the surface, and I can’t click for more. Then again, in many ways it’s old news. And mostly - I just don’t want to read it. Ugh.

For some reason, Symphony, which I used to love, strikes me the same way. And I’m wild about Paavo, who is an incredible musician.

I don’t understand the shift in me - but I have to honor it, and assume I will know sometime what’s going on.

A national bestseller by an excellent young writer, about important global issues of the day. I know I should really like this book - but I can only take so much misery.

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai has rave reviews, focuses on several levels of society, and much of it is set in the Indian highlands, at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga, sister of Mount Everest - a part of the world I care a lot about. But why is everyone so miserable, almost from the first minute? and have been all their lives? and are into the future. The cover claims it’s a novel of joy and despair - I never saw the joy.

I know the world is in a mess, that the American culture doesn’t really work for its people, and other cultures are collapsing as well. But it is our job to have as much fun as we can inside those ropes. And to work as we can to see a better world coming.

This book confirms me in thinking novels in general are not fun, and only marginally interesting, if you like focusing on the details of unhappiness.

It is an extraordinary piece of writing, nonetheless. She is gifted. I’m just hoping that next time she writes about the small and important efforts to build better lives from the village up that are going on in that part of the world. Lots of drama there - just not so much misery.

Wow! What an Experience!

Went to St Peter in Chains Cathedral on Thursday, the first time I’ve been to one of their Great Music in a Great Space events. The concert was with Tenebrae, an a cappella English Chamber Choir.

It is indeed a great space, great acoustics, and this is a great choir. The program included Tantum Ergo in plainsong, a Mass by Francis Poulenc, and medieval songs inspired by the Santiago de Compostella Pilgrimage through France and Spain. It was the Pilgrimage that inspired me - I’ve been tempted by it for so long.

But I wasn’t exactly listening. More like sitting with my eyes closed vibrating. Most of the cathedral lights were turned off, and during the second half, the singers wandered the cathedral, so music came from every direction. And there I sat, sort of hearing it, but mostly feeling every note. I’ve never had such an experience before. Floating somewhere near the top of the cathedral, while still sitting in that uncomfortable pew, and distinctly feeling those notes physically. My body was humming. I can still distantly feel that hum.

Folk were blown away by the concert, standing ovations, encores and all. We all had a great experience - though I expect mine was distinctly different than the norm. I’m definitely going to download their CD and see what happens. And if they ever return to the Cathedral or any other space around here - you’ll see me there!

This book is the prequel to Ecotopia, which I reviewed on August 31. Ecotopia is the story of how Northern California, Oregon and Washington State became a separate country, with very different beliefs and actions in regard to the environment, work, transportation - and all the other pieces of our culture. Written 6 years later in 1981, Ecotopia Emerging does a pretty good job of explaining where and how Ecotopia happened. And I expect it also delineates the author, Ernest Calenbach’s, thought processes as these ideas grew in his mind over time.

This one is fun in most parts - lays out concurrent stories of some of the folk in Ecotopia, and other characters. The real key is the development of a solar cell anyone can build out of common ingredients, plus sea water. And it’s developed by a 17 year old girl. All the better! It also walks us through the kind of community organizing that needs doing to create lasting change - and which we were just learning last year at this time, during Barack Obama’s campaign.

There’s also more of the author’s attempts to understand what relationships / sex will look like when the world changes to true equality and appreciation. As well as how those atom bombs in major American cities which kept the US from blowing up Ecotopia when it first emerged got there.

The only problem - and I just skipped over those pages - was his preaching on why it’s important to change the way we live and what we believe about how the world works. We are so face to face with the global warming disasters that he was only seeing the edges of, that we really don’t need to be preached to.

Both these books are fiction - but filled with reality.