I am not going to manage such great book reviewing as #honeydue, and in fact I struggled to complete this project at all, but I promised #riverflows that this would be the last thing I do here.

#riverflows set a challenge a couple of weeks ago inviting us to share our "bedside books" with eachother. This seems to be in response to the trend of sharing our entire bookcases.

Virginia Woolf: "The Voyage Out"

I had, actually, already gone there - several times - (in one of my earliest posts, and again more recently) and as my Eleven Readers know I tend to post around my reading always. Thus you Eleven know that I have been reading Virinia Woolf's "The Voyage Out" which is a true companion piece to "A Room of One's Own", with which it has been bundled in my Wordsworth Classic edition.

You will also know that the picture of my book stack changes daily, reading as I do for work and seldom for pleasure. I find it very difficult to sit still without doing something with my hands. Years of 16 hour days of typing haven't helped this neurosis. It helps if I walk while I read, monk around a coutyard style but then on the pavements of my local streets, which, despite knowing every inch blindly after my limited adventures aroung the block, is not without its dangers of twisting an ankle (kiddie bikes, bats, balls; bricks, bags of cement, loose tiles; rip-ties are the worst, or otherwise that new breed of snot-nosed, over-weight, angora-hair cat that won't budge even if you were a snarling mastiff).

Julian Barnes: "The Only Story"

I've done an entire post on the magnificently understatedly euridite Julian Barnes's "The Only Story". I can only recommend more highly his musings on works of art in "Keeping An Eye Open" because it will train your lazy eye like no novel can. In the picture above you can find one book by BarnesI will be enjoying by myself for myself. (I consider myself on intimate terms with Barnes, by now.)

"How Drugs Work"

In the mean time, as you can see on that little tray table (60 if not 70 years old - they don't make 'em like they used to...), that I was reading, a book on drug addiction from an Anthroposophic perspective, in German, but now available in English, I discover a little too late. It is a veritable eye-opener in understanding what really takes place for all kind of addiction, but going in deeply to the most commonly known (hard) drugs and their (chemical) workings and how these effect and disturb and damage the four-fold integration of body, life, soul, spirit.

On my lap, you find a (home book-bound set of photo-copies of Anthroposophic library books) open on an equally in depth analysis of the Etheric World, by Alfred Heidenreich - for the German-speaking Esoteric-Christian connoisseur, only, I'd say.

I know, I know: the above is not a suitable stack to share here on Steemit, really, I well know. It's as crap as my thumbnail pictures and titles and first lines, not to mention my tags. My son is deeply disappointed in me: "That is not how you are going to grow rich" he scorns my efforts. "But darling, as you well know, light of my life, I would rather not be followed!
"Then why bother?" he huffs.
"You told me to," I remind him how it started.
I know I'd never be able to "show" him that there is still life in me yet, and how, all along, I had kept everything invested in your (his!) world, despite only walking round the block, year in year out, all by myself, to return refreshed (or often tortured by thoughts that felt they were being let out to run wild); but I've shown myself. By the same token, turn round that little tuppence, I have shown that I am living in a very different world to every Steemian I have met so far. Still, worlds can collide and find parts fused into new collaboratives. That's all I needed to assert.

ZEN

The next stack was in response to such a collision:

Alan Watts

I had no idea Watts was trending (again). He was one of the first wise men to fall on my path when I went in search of words to explain what I knew. He was fun to walk with a bit of the way, encouraging my own natural style to unfold and discovering, that this life-time I was a woman, however, so that it might not be the best style to go with (thank you Spain).

"Out of Your Mind" (albeit in audio-form) got me through the cold dark January and February, first thing at 5 am when my son had to leave for his workplacement. I would listen to half an hour of him talking (a powerful way to "read" Watts! and I think the best way to start; if only we had Steiner's voice it would make - some - of his work far more easy to penetrate for us now); and this would set me up to write my daily blog.

Seung Sahn: "Dropping Ashes On The Buddha"

This is my "bath book". I won't liken myself to Euripides, but it was in the bath, reading the replies to letters sent the Zen Master that I suddenly "got Zen"!!

The stark, harsh and sometimes banal replies had often irritated me in previous years, and yet I knew them to be "true". It was the first path I set a foot on, on my way out of depression in1987. (Followed by the Dalai Lama and then Krishnamurti). Contrary to my fickle nature, I persisted, maybe wisely taking time off from Zen for many years, aswell. Somehow, I fell back on this path in the Fall of 2017. I was ready to "get it" and not be knocked off my own western course. Its practice for me is not in the sitting - my hips struggle with sukhasana pose.... I think it's about time I took up some dancing.

It may have taken a lot more ironing yet, to get all the wrinkles out of my thoughts about my sister, which had been forced to live in letters (to myself) but his style of response (for that is what a letter always is) would come to liberate me from responding to anything that was not there for her. It meant that my letters would have to shrink to bare formalities - and the first month of writing here testifies to the pain this caused my heart, the difficulties accepting this with my head, and all that ego-astrality that also cannot afford to let go in the current society we live in. It's a rock and a hard place, that makes living out what you know to be true in the bath almost impossible concretely, but in the meantime you can change your mind.

Which takes us

Into The Heart Of Life by Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo

A Buddhist practitioner and a self-assured woman, whose smile never fails to inspire me. A watered down version of Watts or Seung Sahn, if only by belonging to a different (more heartfelt) division of (Tibetan) Buddhism. As a nun, besides, she is thus more religious than purely spiritually Zen. I think she probably makes an easy read for the average anglophone - being originally a Londoner herself.

Her first best-selling "Cave in the Snow" chronicles her journey inwards (in a cave, alone for twelve years, till the Chinese authorities evicted her from Tibet for not having a visa). This book of talks and dialogues (my new bath book) is full of insights given in response to typical western concerns and inquiries into how to live a more mindful life.

That was a tailored selection I know some of you will love.
But I wouldn't be your sukhasana-sister if I didn't also try to nudge you out of your comfort zone and give you something new to get your bleeps stuck into.

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Anthroposophically-Inspired Works

Try these for size. They are all written for a modern audience and without too much obscure Anthroposophic language, attempting to come at some esoteric understanding or new way of viewing our world and the future of Man with an Anthroposophical Spiriual Science as developed by Steiner.

The middle one:

"The Heart Of The Matter"

is nothing at all like the other "Heart" book I reviewed above, mind! It is rather a book for those well versed in sciences. It's subtitle is: "Discovering the Laws of Living Organisms" and it means to show us how to "observe the invisible". It leads us away from a materialistic take on forms and forces, and shows us the etheric formative forces at work (best intro is by Ernst Marti: "The Four Ethers" - very slim work, extraordinarily dense).

Picture from, Olive Whicher and George Adams, "The Plant Between Sun and Earth"→

Olive Whicher 1910-2006 - an Old School Anthroposophist and scientist who collaborated with George Adams on many fabulous projects) considers

• The Earth as Living Organism
• Morphological Thinking
• The Search for Meaning
• Man as Three-Fold Being (thinking, feeling, willing)
• and also the role (or form) of Christ, as always (and often controversially) present in all Anthroposophy (not so easily if conveniently ignored by the more recent scientific Anthroposophs.)

Robert Sardello

Basically says everything I wanted to say here but then better. This book contains a core message that needs to be received into our hearts before we can create a future for Earth. All you more philosophically inclined #ecotrain people will love it.

Where I stay high-flown and rain in water music, Sardello pours out refreshing glasses of lemonade and speaks in a more popular language against a more socio-psycho-political backdrop working towards creating a more spiritual culture. His roots lie in Jung and he's an American - perhaps, needless to add, unless you need more convincing that he remains ever practical, but urgent.

Check out his webpage by clicking on his name above, or pick any of his many other titles.

Pietro Archiati, "Reincarnation In Modern Life"

Is maybe not as modern as it sounds, even if it is from 1996, for it is a properly Steiner inspiried work. Bear in mind it has been written by an Italian Anthroposophist (yes they do exist), who is first and foremost a philosopher and theologist: it makes for a thorough - if modestly paged - set of lectures, with plenty of Biblical references. This could appeal to those esoteric inquirers with Christian backgrounds, helping to show that spiritual science doesn't bite with anything that has gone before.

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My Latest - if not last - (Two) Stack(s) of the Day:

←This one is what I am currently putting out on my little green tray table in the front garden (after 3pm). It's the one for my personal enjoyment.
And this one (↓) is what I start the day on, in the back, on my bistro table (featured in previous posts).

I also return to this pile around preparing dinner, reading on my bar or at the dining table (before the meal is served by yours truly). It is my research pile.

• I mentioned already:

The Original Gita by Gerard D.C. Kuiken

in a post, a couple of days ago, and I want to refresh my language on the concept of Difference that is my way of seeing the world. Basically you could read the Gita and see what I see, but not everybody has the kind of mind that can translate those writings into living images. Kuiken then helps translate it into a more methodical (philosophical) way of understanding which might - just might - help you towards an imaginative appreciation of such source texts.

Schama's

(BBC) documentaries always keep me enthralled. You either love him or hate him (my mother finds him populist and says he should be ashamed to call himself a historian. I don't know: is he fond of America or something? Or has she now started to really dislike the British randomly, too?). I was directed to this particular book (the only one I actually own by him, sometimes just picking up a book to have the person in my presence, regardless of the exact subject material) by another author I posted on at length: Alberto Manguel, who, in "Homer and the Illiad" praised Schamas re-identification of the supposed Aristotle as Appelles, rather (see photo above).

Complementary Nursing in End of Life Care - Integrative care in Palliative Care by Madeleine Kerkhof-Knapp Hayes (Read an interview with her by clicking on her name)

Is the best aromatherapy book I have found to date. I am not a nursey-type, find it hard to touch other bodies, and that is the only thing that stops me from applying to one of her courses (she gives right around the world, from France to Utah and in the Netherlands, where she lives.) It would make a great way to give hands-on-practical pastoral care to the dying, one day; it would do me a world of good to get my head around that.

This is one of those people who just "fell out of the blue" for me. No clue how I ever got to know her - picking her name out of zillions on the web.

A totally down-to-earth lady, whom I have spoken with on the phone, consulting her on blends and conflicting information (eg. Ravintsara v Ravensara! Do NOT confuse them!), and with whom I order all my oils, since she not only tests them herself - for the exact chemical composition - but also bottles them simply, starkly, but with special loving care (no waste on fancy packaging). She has practical experience in classical medical settings, which is useful to someone like me who is interested in creating bridges.

This book is full of the best descriptions of the oils ever: breaking the hundreds of oils available nowadays down into a top 10 you must really become familiar with, and an additional complementary set which is SAFE to use. Too many brands and websites are simply DANGER ZONES. Even very reputable and ultra trendy brands.... Her prices, by the way, are more than reasonable. Her quality always 100% guaranteed. Most exciting is her latest work on CO2 extracts, which she and I both find indespensible to the future of aromatherapy (bringing it also closer to phytotherapy).

She is not an Anthroposophist (but most Wise woMen are not thus labelled!) but her approach convenes with the cautious use of nature's resources found in the Anthroposophical philosophy on cosmetics, medications and nutrition. (What you homesteaders are reinventing! Good for you, but also consider leafing through some existing applied-esoteric trusted sources to speed up that invention of the new - monkey- and-rabbit-free -wheel).

Only after a proper scientific understanding of what the plant has to offer each of our levels of being can we profit from otherwise "alien" (and often toxic) substances. Madeleine has a very spiritual side to her palliative care, including bereavement periods during which oils can be highly consoling and even realigning. I find her work supports me in my desire to avoid the abuse man always leans towards in his exploiting natural reserves for the sake of consumerism and casual application.

Check out her website for more details on her book.

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The blurbs for the green tray reading table - to be complete:


May I leave you in the knowleged that I love anybody called Milosz, but O.V.L (who wrote in French) is another one of those who fell to Earth for me just when I wondered why the main character in my novel was Lithuanian- which is a debatable issue for Czeslaw that other Milosz, who wrote in Polish but called himself the "last citizen of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania" (I believe, he was the great-nephew of O.V.L.)

Laura Riding Jackson I have mentioned before, as picked up from the best Sunday blog out there: BrainPickings; her work "The Telling"caught my attention as marking a determined line she drew under writing poetry (as an unsatisfactory medium). She explains her issues with poetry in terms I recognise from my twenties. It will be interesting to see how I respond today, but above all, I need to find out what happened to her in the end....

This concludes my posting.

Tomorrow I will be tying up loose ends:

• catching up on comments
• posting the result to my white blob competition
• and leaving you with whatever really still needs to be said: