“Both In and Out of the Game Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am, Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary, Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest, Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next, Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it. Walt Whitman”
― Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing
― Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing
“Don Juan advises Carlito to choose a path with heart. I am familiar with it for the same reason that so many spiritual seekers are familiar with it, because it has that ring of sagely goodness that makes it the one thing out of all of Castenada’s writings that gets widely remembered. Does that make it true or valuable? Obviously not, just another cliché. Just another piece of pretty misdirection. I am well aware that a great many of the world’s most popular spiritual doctrines advocate a heart-centered approach to spiritual development, but popularity among the soundly asleep may not be the best criterion by which to judge a method for waking up.”
― Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing
― Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing
“Nartok shows me an example of Arctic “greens”: cutout number 13, Caribou Stomach Contents. Moss and lichen are tough to digest, unless, like caribou, you have a multichambered stomach in which to ferment them. So the Inuit let the caribou have a go at it first. I thought of Pat Moeller and what he’d said about wild dogs and other predators eating the stomachs and stomach contents of their prey first. “And wouldn’t we all,” he’d said, “be better off.” If we could strip away the influences of modern Western culture and media and the high-fructose, high-salt temptations of the junk-food sellers, would we all be eating like Inuit elders, instinctively gravitating to the most healthful, nutrient-diverse foods? Perhaps. It’s hard to say. There is a famous study from the 1930s involving a group of orphanage babies who, at mealtimes, were presented with a smorgasbord of thirty-four whole, healthy foods. Nothing was processed or prepared beyond mincing or mashing. Among the more standard offerings—fresh fruits and vegetables, eggs, milk, chicken, beef—the researcher, Clara Davis, included liver, kidney, brains, sweetbreads, and bone marrow. The babies shunned liver and kidney (as well as all ten vegetables, haddock, and pineapple), but brains and sweetbreads did not turn up among the low-preference foods she listed. And the most popular item of all? Bone marrow.”
― Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal
― Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal
“writing it down on paper or on a computer where you can see it is because the brain, unlikely as it may sound, is no place for serious thinking. Any time you have serious thinking to do, the first step is to get the whole shootin’ match out of your head and set it up someplace where you can walk around it and see it from all sides. Attack, switch sides and counter-attack. You can’t do that while it’s still in your head. Writing it out allows you to act as your own teacher, your own critic, your own opponent. By externalizing your thoughts, you can become your own guru; judging yourself, giving feedback, providing a more objective and elevated perspective.”
― Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing
― Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing
“The material I teach presents no problems or challenges for me. That’s what being a master means, I suppose. I know this stuff front and back, in and out. I could teach it in my sleep and maybe I do. What is a challenge is how the information is received. Most or all of what I say fits into the receiving brain in a particular place, but there’s always something already there. It’s never an empty slot just waiting to be filled. Not only will every slot already be filled, but there will also be security—probably very tight security—guarding it. If I taught English Lit to eighth graders it would just be a matter of keeping it interesting so the connection stayed open while I uploaded new info, but this is different. No one comes here for their first exposure to the spiritual dimension. Everyone comes pre-educated and the education they arrive with is, for all practical purposes, worse than useless. That’s what I deal with and I’m not a master of cranial lock-picking, I just try hard to do my bit and know that success and failure is out of my hands.”
― Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing
― Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing
Necessary Fiction
— 588 members
— last activity Apr 24, 2012 10:43PM
A complementary group to the webjournal Necessary Fiction, to share books by our contributors and from our reviews section.
A complementary group to the webjournal Necessary Fiction, to share books by our contributors and from our reviews section.
Homesteading
— 105 members
— last activity Apr 21, 2022 05:04PM
Books and discussions about homesteading in all its forms.
Books and discussions about homesteading in all its forms.
Herbal Medicine
— 277 members
— last activity Dec 04, 2016 06:31PM
For anyone interested in herbal medicine, including making herbal remedies, growing medicinal plants, learning about herbs that can be found in your b ...more
For anyone interested in herbal medicine, including making herbal remedies, growing medicinal plants, learning about herbs that can be found in your b ...more
Books That Changed My Life
— 371 members
— last activity Apr 14, 2023 06:04AM
This is a group to discuss and list books that made a difference in your life, impacted the way you live, and so on. (The books don't need to be non ...more
This is a group to discuss and list books that made a difference in your life, impacted the way you live, and so on. (The books don't need to be non ...more
What's My Therapist Reading
— 513 members
— last activity Sep 15, 2024 04:47PM
A book club for therapists/counselors.
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A book club for therapists/counselors.
Elizabeth’s 2023 Year in Books
Take a look at Elizabeth’s Year in Books. The good, the bad, the long, the short—it’s all here.
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