spirituality

“That’s Funny, You Don’t Look Buddhist” by Sylvia Boorstein

December 12, 2017 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: On Being a Faithful Jew and a Passionate Buddhist

Recommended to me by: a friend

Sylvia Boorstein is a Buddhist meditation teacher who grew up Jewish and who came to keep kosher and belong to a synagogue as an adult in addition to her Buddhist practice. As a secular Jew who meditates every morning, I was very interested to see how she mixes the two paths. The book shares how she came to each aspect of her faiths, and how they nourish her.

She likes Buddhism for its practical tools to manage anxiety and grief. She says repeatedly that a calm mind is a compassionate one, and greed and anger melt away. She likes Judaism for its ties to her roots, for community, and for the comfort she finds in its forms of prayer. She ties them together by interpreting Jewish scripture as carrying the same messages as Buddhist thought.

She addresses one of my main objections to Jewish services – the patriarchy embedded in the stories of the Torah – by saying it doesn’t bother her. She just reads around it. Glad that works for her.

Overall, an interesting overview of Buddhism, Judaism, and Sylvia Boorstein’s journey with both.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Active Hope” by Joanna Macy & Chris Johnstone

November 13, 2017 by Sonia Connolly 2 Comments

Subtitle: How to Face the Mess We’re in without Going Crazy

This book, published in 2012, is a practical manual on how to live in challenging times. It has only become more necessary since it first came out.

It starts with three stories of our times, Business As Usual, the Great Unraveling, and the Great Turning. The book is written to those with enough privilege to choose Business As Usual, with encouragement to avoid the despair of staying in the Great Unraveling of runaway climate change, and choose the Great Turning toward sustainable lifestyles instead. Oddly, the book does not address privilege directly at all. It does look like they’re moving toward more awareness of oppression.

Joanna Macy leads workshops in the Work That Reconnects, a four step process. It is rooted in gratitude, grows into honoring our pain, blooms into seeing with new eyes, and creates seeds of going forth, taking action. These steps can happen in the span of a lifetime, and in the span of a few minutes. We go around the steps repeatedly, in a spiral. More about the spiral, with a great image.

Gratitude reconnects us with the web of life that supports us, and reminds us that we do not live in isolation. We are part of that interconnected web, part of the living Earth.

Honoring our pain and the pain of the earth allows that energy to move through us, and to move us toward action. It also gives permission to those around us to acknowledge their own pain, and connects us with each other in witnessing and giving/receiving support.

When we shift into gratitude and acknowledge our pain, we can shift to a larger perspective and connect both with our inner witness self, and with the voice of our community and the earth. We can start to see our power-within and power-with, instead of staying in hopelessness or power-over.

The seeds of action come from that wider perspective, and from opening to visions of how we want to live and how we can get there. We ask what wants to move through us. We move in the direction of our strengths, and treat our enthusiasm as a renewable resource that needs maintenance. We reach out for support.

We live with uncertainty. We don’t know whether things will turn toward being better or worse, so we lean our small weight in the direction of better. We gradually (or suddenly) move toward living more sustainably and happily.

Recommended for finding a way forward in these difficult times. This book is based in environmental activism, but is more generally applicable. It does point out that anyone living in the story of the Great Turning is an activist, whether we go to protests or not. No matter what the ultimate outcome is, I’d rather live day to day incrementally supporting the world I want to see, rather than contributing to the disaster by ignoring it or despairing.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Journey to the Dark Goddess” by Jane Meredith

August 28, 2017 by Sonia Connolly 1 Comment

Subtitle: How to Return to Your Soul

Recommended to me by: Mereth

Jane Meredith weaves together research and interpretation about three myths of descent into the underworld with her own experiences of unintentional and intentional descents. The book is divided into sections on Preparation, Descending, In the Underworld, and Coming Back Out.

The three myths are: Inanna as she descends to her sister’s realm, Persephone as she is taken to the underworld and marries there, and Psyche who is sent to the underworld by Aphrodite as part of a series of tasks to win the right to partner with Eros. These myths are maps of what we might encounter in our own descents – times when everything comes apart through illness, loss, or other transformations.

Jane Meredith strongly advocates for descending consciously with rituals, rather than being dragged into descents without preparation or warning. She makes the case that our lives ebb and flow the way the moon does, and contraction is just as valid as expansion. She also advocates for making maps of our journeys, recording our experiences for the benefit of ourselves and others.

I participated in a Descent of Inanna ritual twenty years ago, and still have the plaster mask I made then. I’ve encountered plenty of descents in my life as well. I wanted the book to tell me how to Ascend, how to find that turning point when things start to get better, rather than living in the underworld. She talks about ascending slowly and consciously, integrating new information. Mirroring the descent of Inanna where she gives up seven aspects of her power and self, in an Ascent we reclaim what we gave up, possibly in changed form.

My body sensed the return of the sun after the recent total solar eclipse as a turning point. The light does return! Things do get better! I’ll have to pay attention to what I’m reclaiming.

Overall, these suggestions and rituals are about confronting the raw truths of ourselves and our lives. Descent is about surrendering everything. Choosing to descend is about reclaiming our power to live fully, even in the hardest times.

Highly recommended as a guide for moving consciously through hard times.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Sacred Economics” by Charles Eisenstein

July 15, 2017 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: Money, Gift & Society in the Age of Transition

Recommended to me by: Tina Tau

This book has a hopeful story about our current disastrous economic and political situation. In reaching for connection rather than separation, we can build a new sustainable world to emerge from the ruins of the old. I love that story, and the support it gives me for the ways I choose to live my life.

The book itself is repetitive, and attempts to convince by comparing an unsubstantiated idyllic past with an admittedly problematic present and attributing the difference to charging interest on money, as well as monetizing the Commons. I’m not convinced that ceasing to charge interest will return us to the idyll, nor am I convinced that it’s possible to wrest the world from the interest-charging people in power.

My doubts were awakened when the author blithely states in passing that poor people are fat because they are addicted to food because of scarcity. When I see such a blatantly false unsubstantiated statement in his book, I start questioning the rest of his narrative.

I also noticed that the book makes no mention of sexism or racism as it describes the appropriation of the commons. I didn’t notice any mention of most of the appropriation being done by white men. Seems like an egregious omission not to have that truth front and center. The Resistance is being led by middle-aged women, many of them of color. It rankles to be erased twice, first in being the ones who are stolen from, and second being the ones who are rebuilding.

I like the impulse to envision what we do want, rather than fighting what we don’t want. We need people to do both, and I am more suited to the former than the latter.

Available at bookshop.org.

“If the Buddha Dated” by Charlotte Kasl

April 20, 2017 by Sonia Connolly 1 Comment

Subtitle: A Handbook for Finding Love on a Spiritual Path

I read and liked this a long time ago. I’ve been recommending it to folks lately, so I reread it to refresh my memory.

The part I remembered and liked was the encouragement to be yourself in dating. Show up as you are, and see if the other person likes the real you.

And what if no one is liking the real you, for a long time? Charlotte Kasl suggests looking at what internal barriers you might have in the way of relationships, and also strongly affirms that it happens when it happens. You might be doing everything right and still remain single, especially if you’re in a location or situation where you don’t meet a lot of eligible people.

The spirituality in the book is down to earth. Show up for your life as it is. Sit with yourself as you are. Bring in more compassion, more gentleness, more acceptance.

She talks a lot about accepting a new love as they are, signing up for everything they do in the present, with the awareness that it all might stay the same or change. Acceptance is important, and at the same time I find relief in LaShelle Chardé’s position that acceptance includes clear boundaries and communication of needs and feelings.

When you are truly in acceptance there is a sense of ease, clarity, openness, and often warmth. When you are thinking you “should accept your partner” (i.e., accepting your partner too much), there is a sense of effort, heaviness, contraction, and lots of deep breaths.

On the topic of discerning whether a new love is or will become abusive and controlling, Charlotte Kasl suggests keeping a list of your bottom lines on the fridge, and noticing when they get crossed. If the list starts looking like a completed shopping list, pay careful attention. Also notice when you’re reluctant to tell good friends about what’s happening in the relationship because, “They just wouldn’t understand.” I would have liked to see a stronger affirmation that you can’t always tell in advance, and abusive behavior is the responsibility of the abuser. Of course we’d like to avoid pain whenever we can.

Overall, a wise, hopeful little book, a quick read that covers a lot of complex topics, touches into some depths, and also skims over some complexity.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Death Without Denial Grief Without Apology” by Barbara K. Roberts

March 18, 2017 by Sonia Connolly 1 Comment

Subtitle: A Guide for Facing Death and Loss

This is a loving clear-eyed unflinchingly personal look at terminal illness, death, and grief by Oregon’s former governor Barbara Roberts. Her husband Frank Roberts died of cancer during her governorship. From the introduction:

I hope for a culture of loving openness in every medical office, hospital room, health care clinic, and emergency room where news of life’s limitations and death’s impending arrival are discussed openly and compassionately. People who are dying and their families and loved ones must be prepared to create such a culture for themselves.

Frank was a state senator during his last year, and there are some mentions of both of their political work in their choice to keep his terminal illness private for some time. I can only imagine the strength it took to continue to govern through illness and grief.

She tells the story of his diagnosis, their decision process together, their choice of hospice rather than further treatment, his quiet death, and her grief afterward. Emotions are included, but the story is calmly told. She shares the practical steps of planning for death. She talks openly about her own and others’ private rituals of grief, such as bringing flowers to a recently dead wife on an anniversary, or talking to the urn containing Frank’s ashes.

Highly recommended!

Wikipedia page about Oregon Democratic governor Barbara Roberts. Her term was from 1991-1995. She was the first woman Oregon governor. The second was just elected in 2016, our current governor Kate Brown.

Available at bookshop.org.