December 2004 Newsletter
Online Issue # 8

Good Books

This Time I Dance!
Trusting the Journey of Creating the Work You Love
by Tama Kieves
Tarcher/Penguin, 2004
paperback, $12.95

Tama Kieves wasn't always a writer and life/work coach. Before that, she graduated from Harvard Law School and was on the partnership track in a large corporate law firm, but miserable. "This Time I Dance" is the story of her transformation out of law and into writing, and more. It began when a friend asked the question, "If you're this successful doing what you don't love, what could you do with work you do love?"

This book won't tell you everything you need to do to discover your dream and make it happen; no book can do that. Instead, you'll find transparent stories from Kieves' life showing you "the way this creative adventure revealed itself" to her, along with noteworthy insights about seeking and finding heart-filled work. You will be immersed in the love of writing, the necessity of daring and allowing, the fear of saying yes or no and then letting go, the lonely confusing stretches in between, the wisdom lurking within and all the grace revealed. Readers with writing aspirations will be doubly blessed to observe this book being birthed.

I couldn't decide on just one quote from the book, so here are several:

"I dedicate this book to that part of myself that inched forward when a thousand winds blew and she had but one small pink birthday candle to hold up her wish."

"From the minute I began writing this book, I wanted to be an advocate, a champion, a paper mentor to those who long to create a livelihood from their natural talents, their dreams, and their love. A mentor stands before us, not with answers, but as an answer. They have "been there," faced their own ravaging nights, and now they are here, in the dawn, somewhat intact, and with any luck, dancing. In their presence, our own sense of danger loses a claw or a fang. Then we begin to breathe or even dare to dream in color."

"I never consciously set out to do any of this. Not any of it. And thank goodness for the foresight to have no foresight because I could never have mapped out this unthinkable tapestry of grace."

-Tama Kieves

Spiritual Literacy
Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life
by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Simon & Schuster, 1998
paperback, $15.00

"Spiritual Literacy" was published in hardcover in 1996 and came out in paperback two years later. I'm including it now because it remains a valuable companion for cultivating everyday spirituality. Anywhere you open the book is an opportunity for something significant to occur. You'll find an alphabet of spiritual practices (attention, beauty, connections.... yearning, zeal), as well as essays, poems, stories and excerpts. You'll be introduced to writers whose work you'll want to read further. More than anything, you'll discover a convenient way to stop briefly and consider things that matter. Every chapter ends with suggestions for practicing spiritual literacy through conversation/writing, action and ritual. I especially like that the readings lend themselves to aimless browsing and random sampling in order to come upon some truly helpful or inspiring thing—often exactly what you needed.

"Life is a sacred adventure. Every day we encounter signs that point to the active presence of Spirit in the world around us. Spiritual literacy is the ability to read the signs written in the texts of our own experiences."

-Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat

Invisible Acts of Power
Personal Choices that Create Miracles
by Caroline Myss
Free Press, 2004
hardcover, $24.00

"Invisible Acts of Power" is a lovely collaboration between Caroline Myss and twelve hundred individuals who responded to her website request for stories about "their experiences with grace and life-changing acts of service." Myss doesn't just offer a collection of touching stories, she uses them to explore and illuminate how the energies of the seven chakras correspond to personal acts of power: "I discovered that just as there is a hierarchy of power, there is also a hierarchy of grace. And I realized that the call to be of service to one another, the intuition that prompts us to use our power to help others, is wired into our physical and spiritual nature."

The most surprising thing about reading this book was how it opened up a stream of personal memories/stories from my own life; in some I offered help and in others help came to me. As I continued reading and remembering, the world seemed somehow more gentle, more tender, and I felt safer than I have in a long while because I felt the healing power of small choices that make all the difference.

"I had not considered, before writing this book, that caring for others and going that extra mile for family, friends, coworkers, or strangers could have a connection to our physical health. Now I believe that the human spirit needs to develop generosity and compassion to be healthy. We need to respond to others' vulnerabilities in the process of addressing and healing our own."

-Caroline Myss

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