Summer Reading: Three books I'd recommend  

Leni, Ernt and Cora’s young daughter, tries to navigate the harsh environment that is her home life and the Alaska wild.  Rather than succumb to them, Leni (and Cora) learns to adapt to Alaska by cultivating community and developing new survival skills.  The more they embraced nature, the stronger they became.  Inversely, Ernt’s paranoia drives him to put up more walls against “civilization.”  The more he shut out others, the more isolated and weaker he became. 

Eventually, faced with the difficult decision of dying (slowly) with Ernt or saving themselves, Leni gives her mother the courage to do what she’d long neglected: protect herself and her daughter at all costs.  By following the dramatic unfolding of this family’s life and relationship, we are reminded of the expansive themes of nature in constant display: adaptability, survival, death, renewal.  The closer we are to it, the more we realize we are a part of it.  And, when we align ourselves with nature, we don’t just preserve it, but also ourselves.     

Untamed (Glennon Doyle)

Glennon came to fame through her blog (https://momastery.com) where she chronicled her life as a Christian, wife and mother of three young kids in all its gore and glory.  Through writing, she slowly (re)discovers her audience, her voice, herself.  

Through a series of honest, funny, raw memoirs, Glennon highlights the inflection points in her efforts to reclaim her narrative…and life.  In Carry On Warrior, she shows the messiness and magic of marriage, motherhood and everyday life.  In Love Warrior, Glennon pulls back the curtain on her seemingly picture-perfect marriage by disclosing her husband’s serial infidelities and, thereby, exposing the lies they were both living.  Finally, in her latest book Untamed, Glennon shares how she moves on when she finds herself falling in love with a woman, famous soccer player Abby Wambach.  The recognition prompted her to seek a divorce; get remarried; create a co-parenting arrangement with her wife and ex that helps ground and guide them and their children through all the big transitions.      

By sharing her life story, Glennon shows both the pitfall and promise of modern life.  By trying to live up to society’s ideals of marriage and motherhood, she had to silence her own voice, which spoke of unhappiness and lack of fulfillment.  When Glennon slowly found the courage to speak her truth, her life began to live out that truth.  This eventually led her to raze old ideals so as to make space for a new reality where she’s able to live freely…untamed.    

Power vs Force (David R. Hawkins)

WARNING:  You’re either going to love this book or hate it.  

Unfortunately, Hawkins doesn’t help matters by starting out with a lengthy exposition on the human body’s kinetic ability to give yes or no answers to all our questions.  Perhaps, I didn’t get it, but this came across a little quasi-physic. 

But read on, and you’ll realize that Hawkins’ real focus is metaphysics, foremost being consciousness.  He believes that consciousness exists on both the macro (Universe) and micro (human being) level.  To illustrate his point, Hawkins assigns numbers to the different stages of consciousness.  The lowest level (20-100) is occupied by the Ego with its attending feelings of shame, guilt, apathy, fear, grief.  Meanwhile, the highest level (500 and above) is occupied by the Self, which is exemplified by love, joy, peace and enlightenment (or complete consciousness).   

Additionally, according to Hawkins, consciousness is power, while unconsciousness is force.  When we raise our consciousness and increasingly align ourselves to the Universe, we start leading a life of power, which is exemplified by acceptance, ease, peace and joy.  When we lower our consciousness and detach ourselves from the Universe, we start leading a life of force, which is marked by pride, anger, fear and shame.  Hawkins offers up examples to further compare and contrast power and force:     

Power: serve others, compassion, stillness

Force: serve self, judgement, movement

According to Hawkins, since all lives are interconnected, when we raise our own consciousness, we help raise the collective consciousness of humanity and, thereby, help (re)align it to the Universe.  No small task!