11/19/99
Right now I'm reading The Best American Essays 1997 (published yearly by Houghton Mifflin) which I bought at the library used book sale last year for a dollar. I used to think essays were boring old texts of philosophical and political statements. What they're calling essays are juicy slices of life, personal stories with humor, drama and interesting points of view.
When I was a kid, I never read any nonfiction if I could help it. I learned all my history from historical fiction and a whole lot of science from science fiction. Nonfiction seemed boring. It's what you had to read for school. This changed when, as a young adult, I started studying yoga and metaphysics. Then I barely read any fiction at all. I was studying constantly - scripture, philosophy, psychology, astrology, with plenty of self-help books thrown in. I was molding, changing and rearranging my consciousness.
Now I mix and match. I go into the library and let my intuition loose on the racks in the new books section. I try to only choose the books that say, "Take me home. You must read me." I never let 'shoulds' guide my choice i.e. "This is a best seller -- you *should* read it." In my book bag from my latest library excursion is a book of Christmas stories from SF author Connie Willis. Ready to return is The Road to Mars by Eric Idle (of Monty Python fame), an entertaining combo of science fiction and philosophical and psychological thoughts about comedy and comics.
In my bathroom vanity I have a drawer with three or four thought-for-the-day books, a book on writing, and a self-help book. I just bought a chrome magazine rack for that special room to keep the rest of the reading material from stacking up on the floor.
In the meditation room, after my morning meditation practice, I am reading The Greatness of Saturn by Robert Svoboda, an Ayurvedic/Jyotish 'cure.' That means the mythology of the story is therapeutic in dealing with the karmic energies of the planets. At this year's Harvest Of Wisdom Book Festival one of the swamis at the Temple of Kriya Yoga talked about this book in such glowing terms that I ran to the bookstore and bought it right away. As a Capricorn, Saturn is my 'star of destiny.'
On the bookshelf headboard of my bed, I've got The Aladdin Factor by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen. About three weeks ago, I was talking to the meditation class about the spiritual practice of contentment in which we stop all the whining and complaining we do in the course of our everyday lives. Instead, I suggested we simply ask for what we want. I left the class and headed home down Golf Road, a major east-west street with endless malls, car dealers and restaurants. When I was getting close to Borders Books, I felt drawn to stop. I almost never stop at Borders. As a book addict, it's like an alcoholic stopping at a bar 'just to look around.' But I went with my intuition. Just as I walked in, I saw "The Aladdin Factor" on the bargain table, with the quote on the cover "one of the greatest lessons you'll ever learn is to ask for what you want." I bought it.
Also on the headboard shelf is a Fantastic Alice short story anthology edited by Margaret Weis in which fantasy authors use the children's book 'Alice in Wonderland' as the starting point for their tales. The "Best American Essays" is also located there, just right for a quick read before I go to sleep.
Both 'Alice' and 'Essays' moved to the headboard from another shelf that I mentally label "books I'd like to read if I can find the time." I actually finished a whole book from that shelf last week, one of Shirley MacLaine's recent autobiographies, recounting her adventures with her Hollywood co-stars. My stepmother loaned it to me a couple years ago. For a moment I thought I could really catch up with my reading, that maybe if I read like a fiend and ignored everything else, I could clear that whole shelf. Then, at Monday night meditation class, a generous student gave me two good spiritual books which he had duplicates of. They filled in the blank space along with "Best American Essays 1995" which I found at the most recent library sale.
The last book on the headboard is a bound journal of blank pages in which I write my daily gratitudes (as suggested in one of my bathroom books Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach). An infinite wealth of books surrounds me and I am grateful.
(c) 1999 Marcia M. Sacks
