book meme

1. One book that changed your life?

The most current one would be ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life by Judith Kolberg, Kathleen Nadeau. Though I think that each book I read probably has affected me subtly if not overtly.

2. One book you have read more than once? Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Hey, it's a classic. :-)

3. One book you would want on a desert island? I don't know. I'm really torn between something spiritual/something encouraging/something entertaining/something practical. I'm sure I'd read whatever I had endlessly. Maybe materials to write my own works would be best.

4. One book that made you laugh? Anything by John Irving usually has me dying laughing one minute and all verklempt the next. :-) I really need to read Son of the Circus again--the dildo scene had me laughing so hard I was crying.


5. One book that made you cry? Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker. I pretty much sobbed my way through the entire book.

6. One book you wish had been written? The one that makes humans stop destroying ourselves and the planet?

8. One book you are currently reading? Bhagavad Gita and Compassion In Action (Ram Dass and Mirabai Bush). Okay, so that's two books.

9. One book you have been meaning to read? I've been meaning to finish Moonlight and Vines by DeLint, but I keep procrastinating, because once it's done I'm out of new DeLint stories for the time being. :-)

10. Now tag five people.

eh, do it if you want to :-)

lengthy qotd

"A woman once came to Gandhi with her young son. 'Mahatma-ji, tell my son to stop eating sugar. It's not good for him.' Gandhi told her to return with her son in a week's time. When they returned, Gandhi said to the boy, 'Stop eating sugar.' The woman was perplexed and asked Gandhi why he couldn't have told the boy that a week earlier. Gandhi replied, 'Because at that time I had not given up sugar.'

"What I feel is that the truth, as well as I can express what I can understand of it, is a gift I can give to another person. By offering them my truth as I know it, I am also offering them the message that the situation is safe. I am not consciously hiding anything. It's a little like a wolf baring its neck to another wolf. The other wolf then feels safe and stops fighting. We live in such a disturbing, paranoid world that a whiff of truth is like the most wonderful music. It may be difficult to hear, but it speaks directly to our hearts and invites them out to play.

"Whether I speak the truth or withhold it depends, of course, on the situation. Some people don't want the truth. I may be with a person who is obviously dying and simultaneously denying it. Unless the person asks me outright, 'Am I going to die?' or words to that effect, I don't try to force her or him to face it. What is important for the potentially heart-networking communication is that I not knowingly lie and am willing to share my truth if I sense that it is appropriate.

"Many times I've played the truth game with another person. We sit looking into each other's eyes and take turns saying, 'If there is anything that you would rather not share with me because it is too difficult, embarrassing, inappropriate, trivial, whatever--share it.' When I am asked that question, you can be assured that the most embarrassing thing imaginable, which I may have never thought about before, comes into my mind. Then, uncensored if possible, I answer the question. Then both of us sit quietly together contemplating the answer, until we have digested it. To digest it is to get by one's reactivity until one can see the response and all it implies as just another poignant part of the human condition.

"With this method we either very quickly melt into the shared awareness that is true love or we meet a resistance in our collective psyche. We cannot tell what fear awakens the resistance in which of us, but here we stop. To do more would attempt violence, which would be fruitless. Stopping is not a failure. There was no necessary accomplishment. We did what we did and faced what we were ready to face. And that is this moment's truth. And there is sweetness in sharing just that."

--Ram Dass, from Compassion In Action