Inner Ocean Publishing

Awake in the Wild: Mindfulness in Nature as a Path of Self-Discovery

admin — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 12:58:00 +0000

"The teachings and practices of this book will come alive only if you leave the comfort of your home and explore the natural world, which is always beckoning, just outside your front door." I read this first chapter of Mark Coleman's Awake in the Wild with a chuckle as I release my clutching grasp on the sticky New York City subway pole to turn the page of his book of Buddhist meditations. Sweaty bodies press against me as I struggle to be present in the moment and find my centered breath. Full disclosure: I have never meditated, never read a book on Buddhism, never traveled to India. My only Eastern spiritual experiences have been in yoga classes in Brooklyn where I usually leave early to rush to work on time.

So it is with particular sincerity that I recommend Coleman's book. I found that halfway through his organized musings on the importance of nature in our lives, I was pausing in the street to watch the sun set between the Manhattan skyscrapers and touching the bark of trees along the sidewalk to feel the energy emanating from the trunk. This book is an easy-to-follow, illuminating and inspiring guide to not just enjoy nature, but to really understand the necessity of finding the time to go outside. The meditations are simply outlined and definitely accessible to the first-timers as well as more seasoned Buddhist practitioners. Each section suggests different and unique ways of engaging with the natural world and includes specific actions and meditations to practice on your own whether you live on a foggy mountaintop or in a concrete metropolis.

Before I write too much more about my discovery of my inner wood nymph, I do admit that there were still quite a few eye rolls as I read about how watching a flock of geese or staring into rippling water can make your troubles gallop away. But after relishing the final pages, I am left with a new appreciation and respect for the power and beauty of the natural world and also a lingering sadness at the rate in which we are moving away from relationships with the wild and more towards virtual ones. Coleman will inspire you to flip shut your laptop's floating cloud screensaver, and go outside to breath in the real thing.

Written by: Dana Edell, June 2nd 2007

Deeksha: The Fire from Heaven

admin — Thu, 31 May 2007 01:23:00 +0000

By Kiara Windrider

Inner Ocean Publishing

Imparting spiritual advice and spreading the message of a new worldwide movement, Deeksha: The Fire from Heaven offers readers a lot of information. In the first third of the book author Kiara Windrider takes readers on the journey of his personal enlightenment. He describes in great detail what brought him back to his native India, where he studied with the Avatar’s Bhagavan and Amma at the newly founded Oneness University.

The first part of the book reads like a no-frills memoir and ends when Windrider finishes explaining his new path in life. The book continues with shorter stories of other student’s experiences at Oneness University, explanatory passages covering everything from brain chemistry to the Mayan Calendar, and an interview with the Avatar Bhagavan himself.

The book title, Deeksha, refers to person-to-person transfers of energy that according to Windrider and the Deeksha Movement create a neurocircuitry change in the brain. This change allows ego and the sense of a separate self to take the back burner and eventually leave completely. Think of Deekshas as Reiki’s more powerful cousin. This change in the brain allows people to fully realize oneness, the idea that there is no separate self and that we are a part of everything in the universe. This, says Windrider, is what elusive enlightenment is all about.

So does enlightenment mean constant happiness for the rest of your life? Not at all, Windrider concludes. Happiness comes and goes just like all emotions and enlightenment is about not being attached to any of them. I picked up Deeksha: The Fire from Heaven hoping to learn more about the nature of happiness and was awed when the book ended up breaking down many assumptions I had about the emotion itself.

This book challenges the way most of the world looks at everything from religion to global climate chaos. It exposes readers to an important spiritual movement in India that has only just begun to spread westward. While you may not be moved to take the capital “I” out of your writing, this book will give you some tasty thought morsels to ruminate on for months to come. And who knows, maybe they will one day help you to be, in laylady’s terms, More Happy.

Written by: Kaytlyn O'Connor, May 30th 2007

The Secret Lives of Lawfully Wedded Wives

admin — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 12:48:00 +0000

Edited by Autumn Stevens

Inner Ocean Publishing

More than just an anthology of essays about marriage, The Secret Lives of Lawfully Wedded Wives is a collection of unique perspectives on committed relationships and the human condition - more specifically, the female condition. Complied by Autumn Stevens, a seasoned editor, the book covers topics from infidelity to adoption and cross-cultural marriages to same sex relationships so it's sure to contain something everyone can relate to.

Keeping in mind that “this book is not for the faint-hearted,” as was so eloquently stated in the preface by Marilyn Yalom, it's easy to get lost in the pages. The essays were written by women, the book was edited by a woman, and it is targeted toward women because, honestly, who knows women better than women?

The Secret Lives of Lawfully Wedded Wives touches on humor, sorrow and everything in between, and I found myself forced to take a step back and examine my own relationships as well as my personal role in society. I feel empowered having done that, and, most of all, I feel accepted knowing that other women experience the things that I experience. The essayists paint a very realistic picture of what it means to be a woman both independently and in relationships by examining real-life situations; their problems, my problems, and your problems in a new and refreshing light.

Written by: Jonna Vercellini, March 8th 2007