My Best Reading from 2015

As is now my annual tradition, I’m sharing my favorite reading from last year… just in case any of you have made a resolution to learn more and/or read more and need a solid recommendation. This is the short list, so if you want any other recommendations, please don’t hesitate to ask. But if you’re looking for the gems, I’ve listed them below.

They’re in a particular kind of order. I’m going to start off with what I believe are the most important readings (those concerning spiritual growth), then move to some non-fiction that will make you very angry (re: capitalism, greed, exploitation, racism), then transition to some non-fiction that will warm the heart and make you smile (one classic, one contemporary), and end with the most powerful collection of poetry I have ever read that can lift your spirit and inspire you to go out into your natural environment—to love nature and to love yourself as a unified being with creation.

As always, I look forward to talking to you after you’ve read one, since all literature really comes to life and becomes part of you if you share your thoughts and ideas on it with another… and because it’s just so fun to talk about books!

A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose

By Eckhart Tolle

I am not sure how to sum up this book other than this: it can change your life. Of all the books I’ve read over the last few years on spirituality, this is the one that does the best job of summing it all up. In other words, were I left with only one contemporary spiritual teaching, it would be this accessible work.

The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth

By M. Scott Peck

This is another enlightening work that can change your life. Peck offers my favorite definitions of love: “The will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth” (81). This conception of Love is still so profound to me, even as I type this and reconsider it… because its meaning is contingent upon spiritual growth, both for the self and for the other person. I read this book on the recommendation of my spiritual teacher, Melissa Love Glidden (also one of the founders of MOSAIC, my yoga studio in San Diego to which I’ve referred throughout this blog). Peck’s words are powerful—so much on how to truly love, both others and yourself. If taken to heart, this book will revolutionize how you interact in relationships.

Encyclical Letter: Laudato Si’

By Pope Francis

As most of you know, I am not affiliated with any one faith or doctrine, but I believe there are universal truths in written form that are worth sharing, and the Pope's most recent Encyclical on the issue of "care for our common home" is one such written work. I came across it while researching my dissertation topic on ecology, and it is full of beautiful gems and disheartening truths... ones that I hope we all take the time to think about and bring into our hearts. His final message, at least how I interpret it, is a recipe for how to save our planet from destruction—in order to care for nature and ourselves, we must learn to LOVE in a way that exhibits “universal fraternity” for all life, and once we tap into this deep, profound LOVE, we can then see the interconnectedness of all that is and we can then know the ecological and spiritual truths that permeate our existence.

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

By Elizabeth Kolbert

There have been five mass extinctions during Earth’s 4.5 billion years of existence, and Kolbert provides scientific proof that we are on the verge of a sixth mass extinction (meaning, more than 50% of all species will be eradicated from the planet). Such an important book for all of us to read, so we can be informed about this critical situation we’ve got ourselves in. However, I must say that this book needs a warning sign attached to it: Contains very disturbing information about the fate of humanity and our planet. I have never cried so much while reading before, and not for good reasons. I was appalled at some of the events she recalls and information she relays because it is difficult for me to believe that humanity can be so corrupt, selfish, greedy, and dark. Nonetheless, the ending reminds us that there is still hope—we can change the course of our inevitable doom if we change our actions now.

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

By Naomi Klein

Klein has easily become my favorite non-fiction author. She is fearless in her critique of free-market capitalism and its greedy, exploitative actions against those most vulnerable—those living in a region where there is disaster, be it human-created disaster, like the Iraq War, or natural disaster, like Hurricane Katrina. Examining Milton Friedman’s and the Chicago School’s influence on economic strategies implemented around the globe, she tells the unfortunate story of how people in positions of power take advantage of shock to gain capital and power. If you want to skip the long reading and watch a documentary outlining the major concepts, check out some options like this and this on Amazon.

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate

 By Naomi Klein

I was serious about loving Klein’s work. This is her most recent book, and if you’re noticing a trend here, you’re right. She basically has it out for free-market capitalism. And she should. We all should. This book, published in 2015, tells how we got ourselves into this mess of climate crisis (note, if Kolbert predicts our future, Klein gives us our history).

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

By Michelle Alexander

Alexander, a civil-rights lawyer and legal scholar, argues that we are not in an age of colorblindness, as many people believe, but rather in an age where the US criminal justice system operates to control racial groups and discriminate against people of color. She explains how the War on Drugs is actually a contemporary version of the Jim Crow Laws from the Reconstruction Period, meaning, a redesigned version of a caste-system that targets the African American community, specifically men. Alexander includes a remarkable amount of evidence, statistics, and figures on the issue that will appall you for the injustice it reveals. Her book offers a call to action to confront this issue in the name of racial justice and civil rights. Take a look at her website for more info and definitely watch the trailer.

Don Quixote

By Miguel De Cervantes

For those of you who love a good laugh and need some fiction in your life, this is for you! Tells the story of Don Quixote, a man living in sixteenth-century Spain who believes he is a knight-errant (in a time when knights are of the distant past), and who ventures forth with his squire, Sancho Panza, in search of ways to make himself useful. The tale explores the themes of how we construct identity, how individuals quest to find their place in the world, and how all of life contains elements of seeking, both externally and internally. I read Don Quixote in a course on world literature and was surprised by how much I enjoyed reading it. Not only is it hilarious, but it is also an important work in the literary canon, since it marks the rise of the novel in the west. Note, don’t be discouraged by its length—the novel is comprised of two sections, and I felt satisfied to stop at end of the first section.

Driftless

By David Rhodes

Another beautiful work of fiction. Doc (aka Professor Arthur Seamans) recommended this reading to me years ago, and I finally got around to reading it. So glad I did. I rarely make time for contemporary fiction, and novels like this make me worry I’m missing out! Includes one of the most lovely descriptions of death, a few of the most memorable scenes of human tribulation, and some of the most poetic prose I’ve ever read.

New and Selected Poems, Volume One

By Mary Oliver

This year, something incredible happened. I switched to a new favorite poet—Mary Oliver. Though I still love Elizabeth Bishop, I find Oliver’s poetry full of so much hope. There is a sense of universal connection to all living beings that permeates her work. She marvels at nature, at life, at all things, and finds in them a reflection of herself and the cosmos. Love and Truth are at the heart of every poem, even when presenting a challenge to how we normally conceive of love and truth. A truly remarkable collection of poems—within its pages lies an invitation to change how you see the world, yourself, and all of creation.

Lighting Candles: Dealing with Darkness and Grief

One of my lifelong teachers, Professor Arthur Seamans, aka “Doc,” has an arsenal of aphorisms—one-liners, sayings, tidbits of wisdom he’s collected from well-known quotes, mythologies, verses, and, of course, poetry. Since I’ve been lucky enough to spend lots of time in his presence, I’ve been able to gather these aphorisms, to memorize them, to keep them for safe keeping until I needed them. Over the past week, two of Doc’s sayings helped me understand something that felt completely overwhelming at first.

The first quote comes from William Wordsworth, a Romantic poet who became England’s poet laureate in 1843. During my senior year of undergraduate studies, Doc conducted an independent study for me in Romantic English Literature, and Wordsworth’s “Lines Written in Early Spring” was on the syllabus. Here are two lines that stuck with me:

And much it grieved my heart to think

What man has made of man. (lines 7-8)

A week ago, as I sat down to eat dinner, a song came on my Pandora station that has always tugged at my heartstrings: the theme from the film Schindler’s List. I don’t know what came over me, but I lost it. I wept. Reflecting back to the film, which is always a difficult one to watch, and to the atrocities it displays from World War II, I was struck by the cruelty, by the hatred, by the darkness within humanity. Thinking of the Holocaust and what we are capable of doing to one another, I allowed Wordsworth’s lines to nurse my grieving heart.

Though the experience—the music playing and its ability to transport me to a specific time in history—was powerful, indeed, I knew something else was going on. I knew that my despair had been building up.

For the last two weeks, I’ve read a series of books on a subject that is both terribly appalling and utterly shocking, but to stay on task, I’ll just mention the two books that stand out most and that are relevant to this post (of course I’ll explain these books more in depth at the end of the year in my annual “Must-Reads” blog post, but for now, a snapshot will have to do).

The first book is Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. In it, Kolbert offers up as evidence a survey of scientific studies, ranging from sociology to anthropology to biology to ecology, to prove that the earth is on the verge of our sixth mass extinction (note, a mass extinction qualifies as a wipe-out of at least 50% of all species; the last time this happened was 66 million years ago, and the other four occurred before that over the span of Earth’s 4.5 billion years of life). As if that news wasn’t disturbing enough, she names the cause—humans. Our mistreatment of nature will lead to our demise, to the extinction of our species.

To corroborate and really breakdown the how and why of this sixth extinction is Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate. In this book, Klein fiercely explains how capitalism (and all its accouterments—greed, materialism, consumerism, colonialism, industrialization, exploitation, power) is responsible for the changes in our climate, changes that will cause our sixth extinction if we don’t do something drastic now. Humanity’s obsession with these things has seemingly disconnected us from all that is sacred—human life, the natural environment, and morality. Klein shows us the error of our ways, not backing down for a moment in holding up the mirror to our deeply flawed ideologies—ideologies that have turned us against ourselves because their truths are too inconvenient to our current way of life.

And so, as I grieved over the Holocaust and over one of humanity’s darkest hours, the truths presented in these books accompanied that grief. Our mistreatment of one another and our Earth exceeds my comprehension entirely.

Much it grieved my heart to think

What man has made of…

But then, Zachariah came home. We hugged, we sat in communion together over a meal (mine being reheated), we shared news from our days, and we feasted and delighted in one another’s company. How quickly I was reminded of the good in the world. How quickly I felt the power of love (the big-L love—the love that permeates all existence—and though little-l love—romantic love—offers up its own beauty, that’s not quite what I mean here). How quickly the veil of darkness lifted, and I could see clearly again.

And then another of Doc’s gems came to me:

It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.

This one phrase has lifted me out of many emotionally overwhelming situations, has helped me make sense of the most trying times and circumstances. Once it became part of me, everything else just clicked, meaning, my entire cosmology fell into place, though it took me some time to understand that cosmology fully. When I took this phrase in, I made a silent vow to myself: I will strive to be a person who lights a candle. Though I may fall into despair when facing hard times, this phrase reminds not to dwell there for long, since cursing the darkness will never do any good.

I wanted to write up this blog post the very next day, on Thursday. But time ran away from me, and in my procrastination, the world was tormented by terrorism, by the darkness that exists in humanity. So now seems as important a time as any to pass along the wisdom I’ve been blessed with from Doc, wisdom that has me choose against cursing the darkness and instead opting for prayer—prayer for the world, for the Earth, and for humanity. Even though Wordsworth’s sentiments may someday resonate again, I trust in my ability to help raise our collective consciousness, to uplift others toward love, and to light my candle.

Missouri and Illinois: The Midwest and a Lesson on Perspective

All my traveling begins the same, and that is by asking one question that will guide my experience: What lesson will this trip teach me if I am open to it? For this journey to the Midwest, the answer didn’t hit me until the last day, but once I realized what it was, I saw its threads running through everything, waiting for me to notice, trusting that I would see.

On the flight across the country, I decided to get some work done, and so I read New and Selected Poems Volume I by Mary Oliver (one of the poets I am writing about in my dissertation). Oliver, I argue, sees the world from a chosen perspective, and this choice informs her perception and understanding of all life in the universe. In other words, Oliver’s poetry advocates this one basic lesson—we all have the power to choose how we see things, how we approach trying to understand this world, this universe. Here is an excerpt from Oliver’s “When Death Comes” to illustrate what I mean:

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common

as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,

tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

So on that flight to Kansas City, Oliver’s poems instilled in me a mindset, one that encouraged active choice about perspective and that promised a higher understanding as a result of that choice.

After arriving in Missouri, I headed straight for Liberty, where I was fortunate enough to participate in celebrating the 2015 cohort of Truman Scholars in what they call the Truman Scholar Leadership Week. Undoubtedly, I have never been in a room with so many movers and shakers, so many altruistic humans who have dedicated their lives to acts of service and to making the world a better place for all of us. Saturday evening ended with a talk from Professor Marcia Chatelain, former Truman Scholar who recently published her first book entitled South Side Girls: Growing up in the Great Migration. Though her entire talk was inspirational, the piece that stirred me most came out during the Q&A session after the talk. When asked how to handle a conversation with someone about an issue where the two views are entirely opposing (in this case, we were discussing the events in Ferguson), Chatelain advised this: ask the person what value guides that particular understanding or interpretation of the event or issue. She said, and I’ll do my best to get it right here, that we all have a frame of understanding that informs what we think, and in order to expand or deepen our understanding, we must shift the frame. Shift the frame, shift the perspective. To give a little more depth to her answer and to her talk, she was especially advocating the value of studying history and the total value of education in relation to this process of shifting one’s frame.

My next lesson came when Zachariah, his mom, Jami, and I arrived in Henry, Illinois. We were driving across some areas of tall grass, and I kept seeing little sparks of light in the distance, hovering over the grass. I assumed it was just flashes from the reflecting headlights approaching us, until Jami said that this was the first time this year she’d seen the fireflies out. I was amazed! I had never seen fireflies before, and to see them scattered out in the field at night was incredible. I was also stunned that my limited knowledge about these tiny creatures prevented my ability to fully comprehend what was real in that moment. I thought back to Chatelain and the value of education in terms of informing our understanding of all things, including the mating habits of fireflies. I was grateful for Jami’s wisdom that illuminated and made richer my own interpretation of those lights in the field. Unfortunately, I was unable to get a photo of this scene, but here’s one to give you some sense of what it was like, along with a photo of Jami, Zachariah, and me at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum in Liberty and another of us with his sister, Molly, and her baby, Barret, in Henry:

A few days later, Zachariah and I walked all across his hometown, Henry, talking about his memories of the place and the events that occurred during his childhood there. We marveled at the difference in our perception of the little town. To me, it was idyllic, picturesque in terms of what I’d imagine quintessential summer in America to be. I imagined running through sprinklers on the lawn, swimming in the large river skirting Henry, watching the fireworks in the park on Independence Day. It seemed a place of innocence, of the good life, of small-town values. But to Zachariah, because of his not-always-so-fond recollections of the place, Henry was full of ghosts, of hauntings, of a troubled past. The town for him could never be what it was to me because of the vivid memories encroaching upon his perception. Though both of our perspectives were real and valid, time and the past shaped our views in a drastically different fashion.

Later in the week when Zachariah and I arrived in Chicago, one of our first destinations was Millennium Park to see The Cloud Gate, or what some unfortunately refer to as “The Bean.” Architect Anish Kapoor designed this art installation from stainless steel, and the effect is that viewers can peer into a mirror-like surface that reflects the self in middle of the city backdrop—to see one’s self in the context of the surrounding environment. As we explored the various curves and contours of The Cloud Gate, I marveled at the myriad ways the viewers interacted with the installation, how they engaged the art. Some lay prostrate on the ground with their feet propped up against the base, some made faces to see their expression reflected back, some rubbed the stainless steel to get the tactile sensation of the cool metal, some walked beneath the dome and peered up to see the seven or so versions of their self replicated back from different angles and in different sizes. The Cloud Gate was an artistic representation of differing perspectives.

Later that day, we ended up at The Art Institute of Chicago, which houses six paintings from Claude Monet’s haystack series. The story goes like this: in 1890/91, Monet painted stack(s) of hay during different seasons and during different times of the day. What I saw when looking at these paintings together was how much the natural environment changed the appearance of the stack(s). Monet’s work is among my favorite, and his paintings never fail to teach me valuable lessons in life, and in this case, the art reminded me of the power nature can have on our impression, or perspective, of the things around us. (For more info on Monet’s series, go here).

One evening, we took the super smart advice from my friend Raul and visited The John Hancock Center to catch an elevated view of the city rather than doing the skydeck and ledge at Willis Tower (formerly known as Sears Tower). Rather than paying $19.50 for a ticket at Willis, we bought a cocktail at The Signature Lounge in Hancock. Talk about a change in perspective! From the 96^th floor, the city changed completely. From my bird’s-eye view, I got a solid geographical and spatial understanding of the layout of Chicago. It was quiet and peaceful (the wine helped with that), compared to struggling along the hustling streets below. From that elevated point of view, my understanding of the space around me shifted the frame so dramatically that I fell in love with Chicago. I saw miles of beachfront, sailboats scattered across the Caribbean-blue water, the turning Ferris wheel at Navy Pier, the green of trees filling the gaps between buildings, the expanse of the suburbs reaching beyond city proper, the gardens and pools making use of the often-neglected rooftop space, and the outstanding architecture of each of the skyscrapers jetting up around and below me. It was breathtaking, and I probably wouldn’t have understood the city’s magnificence if not for seeing it from that height and from that perspective.

On the flight home, I returned to Oliver, and her words crystalized the lesson from this trip. Here is an excerpt from “The Ponds”:

        Still, what I want in my life

            is to be willing

            to be dazzled—

            to cast aside the weight of facts

            and maybe even

            to float a little

            above this difficult world.

            I want to believe I am looking

            into the white fire of a great mystery.

            I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing—

            that the light is everything—that it is more than the sum

            of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

What all of this taught me is simple. Perspective changes everything. But what I still haven’t quite figured out is what external or internal influences determine how we adopt any particular perspective. The lessons from this trip offer up a few philosophies. Oliver’s poetry tells us we have the power to choose our perspective. Chatelain’s advice encourages us to shift our frame to get a deeper understanding of things. Jami’s generosity in sharing her wisdom reminds us that everyone is a teacher. Zachariah’s view of his hometown illustrates the effect of past experiences in how we perceive things. Kapoor’s installation invites curiosity when approaching multiple perspectives. Monet’s paintings reveal how nature and the environment alter our view. The heights of The John Hancock Center allow for transcendence and seeing the world from a higher perspective. I suppose synthesizing these lessons gives us one hopeful possibility—that regardless of how we see things in any given moment, we have the power to change how we see things. In other words, if our understanding and approach to life is based on our perspective, then all of life depends upon the frame we choose to adopt. What will your choice be?