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Chasing Rumi: A Fable About Finding the Heart’s True Desire by Roger Housden
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I could feel where Georgiou was when I allowed it to happen. The book has moved me forward, not through it’s depth or Roger Housden’s literary prowess necessarily, but by reminding me of something I have allowed to dissipate. That’s it really, it has reignited my desire for true beauty, reminded me of the truth that is. There is so much more than what is here in front of our eyes. We just need to see.
I also like how this book came into my life, as it proves a prevalent point in the novel of how things happen in your life right when you need them and for a reason. That is pretty cool.
I’m all Zen now. :]
-Cara
The Other Book
I am not going repeat what I already wrote here. A quick synopsis, starting August 1st, 2010 I will publish a picture I take that day everyday for a year (well to be exact I will do this everyday until July 31st, 2011). This is the 92nd of those photographs. Also, there is a Flickr collection called “The Awesome Leftovers” where I put the daily shots (if any) that didn’t make the cut.
The other book, get it? :] Here are the rest of the shots from that day, Day 92 – Swim With the Fishes.
-Cara
I know I have been M.I.A. (yes this is a shout out to you know who you are) lately, but I’ve needed to wrap this year up in many ways and thus have been super busy.
I’ve been so crazed lately I decided to stop and take a break with a book. Yes, that’s right I said it, a book break. The name of the book is, The White Garden: A Novel of Virginia Woolf , written by Stephanie Barron
Here’s my review, short and sweet.
This book is pretty fresh. I love the way the author takes the 3 weeks Virginia Woolf was missing after her apparent “suicide” and creates this “what if” point of view.
There you have it.
Now you take a break.
-Cara
“We have rudiments of reverence for the human body, but we consider as nothing the rape of the human mind.” —Eric Hoffer
That my friends is very true. Especially when it comes to to what some of us choose to do for a living or for fun for that matter (like watching the boob tube for hours on end).
Eric Hoffer, the author of this quote, was an American social writer and philosopher who published ten books, a newspaper column and truly lived his life. Born in the Bronx on July 25, 1902, the son of Knut and Elsa Hoffer, immigrants from Alsace, by five he could read in both German and English.
When he was age five, his mother fell down a flight of stairs with Eric in her arms. Hoffer went blind for unknown medical reasons two years later, but later in life he said he thought it might have been due to trauma.
“I lost my sight at the age of seven. Two years before, my mother and I fell down a flight of stairs. She did not recover and died in that second year after the fall. I lost my sight and for a time my memory”.
After his mother’s death he was raised by a live-in relative or servant, a German woman named Martha. His eyesight inexplicably returned when he was 15. Fearing he would again go blind, he seized upon the opportunity to read as much as he could. His eyesight remained, but Hoffer never abandoned his habit of voracious reading.
Hoffer was a young man when his father, a cabinetmaker, died. Sensing that warm Los Angeles was the best place for a poor man, Hoffer took a bus there in 1920 and spent the next 10 years on Los Angeles’ skid row, reading, writing, and working odd jobs.
In 1931, he attempted suicide by means of drinking oxalic acid, but the attempt failed…he could not bring himself to swallow the poison. This experience inspired a new determination to live more adventurously. He left skid row and became a migrant worker. Following the harvests along the length of California, he collected library cards for each town near the fields where he worked and, living by preference, “between the books and the brothels.”
He ended up in the mountains, where he had gone in search of gold. He remained snowed in for the entire winter. While trapped, he read the “Essays” by Michel de Montaigne. Montaigne’s book left its mark on Hoffer and influence his life and future writings.
Hoffer lived in San Francisco by 1941 and became a longshoreman on the docks of The Embarcadero. It was there he felt at home and finally settled down. He continued reading voraciously and soon began to write while earning a living loading and unloading ships. He continued this work until he retired at age 65. Hoffer considered his best work to be “The True Believer“, a landmark explanation of fanaticism and mass movements.
In retirement Hoffer continued his robust life of the mind, thinking and writing alone, in an apartment near San Francisco’s waterfront, until his death at 80 years old.
Make sure whatever it is you do for a living, you are truly living.
-Cara
Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.
– Carl Jung
I like this quote. I founds it on this blog, Reach the Sky. I stumbled upon this particular blog, because somehow someone came from there to here. I like it when I discover things this way.
Let me start with saying I only know of Jung and not so much about him, so I did some quick research to make sure he wasn’t a crazy megalomaniac, or a human slave trader or slayer, etc. It seems he was none of these things. He was a white, Swiss psychiatrist turned philosopher. He was way into alchemy, astrology, sociology, as well as literature and the arts. His most notable ideas include the concept of psychological archetypes, the collective unconscious and synchronicity. This is cool because I like the quote and am now interested in what this Jung may have to say. My mind has been in need of something new to absorb…
Anyway, back to the quote, I think the heart he speaks of is the soul or part of the collective unconsciousness and through connecting to that collective unconscious, we begin to change the thought process of the world. Our energy begins to shift. People or the individual I should say do not realize the power they have to change the world just through their mind/soul/heart. To see the world just as it is in front of you is an unrealistic vision, only a part of the whole. The reality of the world/universe/existence is more than we can see physically, but not metaphysically….that’s right I said it.
Awaken yourself.
-Cara
Last night I was watching a movie I found somewhere, somehow called, “Ecological Design: Inventing the Future” [1994]. We have known a lot of eco stuff for along time, now we need more action. I challenge you to find this movie, watch it and be creative with a cool eco-design. That’s right I said it, a challenge.
One super fresh topic covered in the film was the Whole Earth Catalog. The Whole Earth Catalog was published regularly from 1968 to 1972, the founder, Stewart Brand. According to the catalog, “Whole Earth eschewed politics and pushed grassroots direct power—tools and skills. At a time when New Age hippies were deploring the intellectual world of arid abstractions, Whole Earth pushed science, intellectual endeavor, and new technology as well as old.”
To check out some of the older catalogs online, click here.
Technology and ecological design are awesome.
-Cara
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars
My cousin gave this to me to read awhile ago. I remember she laughed a lot while reading it.
I brought it on a very long trip to the French Alps last week and loved it.
Elizabeth is fresh…I liked her style.
A simple review, I know. :]
-Cara
With that said…
The Day After An Inconvenient Truth via e-mail, a gift from me to you.
You’re Welcome. :]
-Cara
I am selling some stuff on Half.com. Recycling it back into the world…some books, CDs, video games and DVDs. Get ’em while they’re hot.
It’s green.
-Cara
Mary Tyler Moore and Bernadette Peters Broadway Barks 2008
I picked up “City Tails” the other day, it’s this NYC local free pet paper. You may find this at most pet stores here in the City (and other major cities). Anyway, I was reading this interview with Bernadette Peters, who was talking about this program that she and her fellow diva, Mary Tyler Moore partnered up to form, called Broadway Barks. Broadway Barks hosts an annual star-studded animal adoption event that benefits animal shelters throughout the New York City area. They hold it in the famous Shubert Alley (A famous theatrical thoroughfare between 44th and 45th Streets, just west of Broadway, it was created by the space between the back of the Astor Hotel and the Shubert and Booth Theaters. The alley was fenced off for many years, used by actors in the two theaters as a cool place to spend intermission and, at one end, served as a terminal for a New Jersey bus line. To hide the unsightly alley from pedestrians on the sidewalks, a row of large theater posters were put on the fence. The posters stayed even after the buses left and the walkway was open to pedestrian traffic. After the demolition of the hotel and the erection of a skyscraper in its place, the famous alley was widened and, still featuring a row of posters.) With the help of this umbrella organization, shelters work together for the common good of these homeless animal, instead of euthanasia, there are placed with people who will love and nurture them.
The article focused on Peters’ new book entitled, Broadway Barks
That’s cool.
-Cara
I love to read, but rarely read an actual book, so when I do I like to publicize it. You’re welcome! :P
Here is my review of, “Water For Elephants”.
My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars
I thought it was a great book. Every time I picked it up I was not disappointed, that was a bonus.
I found the circus and individual characters to be quite interesting. I could have cared more for Jacob and Marlena’s relationship than I did. It was never a great romance. I also thought she wrapped up the ending pretty fast and perfectly, but I don’t mind that part. :)
The Day After An Inconvenient Truth 
What Did You Say?