Tilt Your Head Back
“When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.” – Buddha
Feel Good Book Review by Lara Kleinschroth~
How wide open are your eyes? How much beauty do you see in the world around you? What are you passionate about? What is your purpose?
Thanks for asking…Yikes!
“We are all meant to shine, as children do. As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” –Nelson Mandela
So…here are two books I’ve come across which you may find inspirational:
Silver Linings: Meditations on Finding Joy in Unexpected Places, by Mina Parker with photographs by Daniel Talbot
Wide Open: On Living With Passion and Purpose, by Dawna Markova
They’re similar in style and concept — words of wisdom combined with beautiful photos, designed to get you thinking, reflecting, meditating. With both, you can take one little lesson at a time and incorporate it into your daily meditation, or give it attention while out for a long walk or bike ride, while gardening or baking bread, commuting to and from work, on your lunch break or as you’re falling asleep at night.
Whenever or wherever you manage to find a few moments of peace for yourself, flip one of these books open to a random page and take the time to reflect on the words you read.
When you’re feeling down or disconnected, pick up ‘Silver Linings’ and flip through the pages of photos — mostly of stunningly beautiful flowers — and feel instantly uplifted. To go a little deeper, find your favourite photo then read and reflect on the corresponding passage.
For instance — I love the photo of the slightly out-of-focus white orchids, set against a dark background. The title on the opposite page is ‘The Shining Darkness’. Below that is the quote: ‘I shut my eyes in order to see.’ –Paul Gauguin.
Parker then shares a personal anecdote of being a kid and on a school trip to Yosemite. They were led on a night time hike, then instructed to carry on along the path one at a time, with no flashlights or torches, no moonlight. From that experience she learned to tune in all other senses and not always rely solely on sight, which may be playing tricks on us. Her meditative suggestion: ‘Take a walk in the dark–even through your own home–and see things in a new light.’
Cool, right? That’s the essence of this book–taking the time to look at things in a whole new light, to see the silver lining in every cloud in our lives.
Dawna Markova’s book is powerful. She is one of the original editors of the ‘Random Acts of Kindness’ series which swept through America a few years ago. This book is essentially a distillation of her best-selling ‘I Will Not Die an Unlived Life’.
It starts off with her poem which inspired thousands of people around the world:
Wide Open
I will not live an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.
Similar in style to Mina Parker’s book, with beautiful photos combined with meditations, Markova takes it one step further by including probing, provocative questions with each meditation. These are designed to get you inspired to dig deep through the sludge and drudgery of the everyday surface of your life and find your soul. Your passion. Your purpose.
Here is a sample of some of the thought-provoking questions:
- Who were you before the alarm clock rang this morning?
- How can you best move through inertia to passion?
- What is the name you call yourself when you want your soul to answer?
- What have you been given with which to give? Where do your talents and the needs of the world intersect? What would have to happen for them to dance with each other?
- How willing are you to risk your significance?
Learning to always keep our eyes wide open and seeing the beauty in everything all around us, every day. And finding the way your own unique purpose adds to that beauty.
My own personal anecdote:
After reading these two books the other day I went out for groceries and took a detour at the hair salon. I know, I can hear you saying, ‘so what?’ Yeah, I know, big deal, a hair cut before groceries…
What was significant about this is the fact that I haven’t had a real hair cut in years–like 10…One of those things for me, I couldn’t be bothered with the expense, plus once it’s cut you gotta keep going back every 6 weeks or so. Such a bother! I usually just let it go long, trim out the split ends, and cut in some bangs and fringe if I ever want any ‘style’. But lately it’s been looking a little drab.
Maybe it was just the way I’ve been feeling in general–stuck in a rut, my life exemplifying inertia, for like, 5 years–feeling frustrated by it, not knowing how to pull myself out, not wanting to ‘treat’ myself to something as wasteful as a new hairdo.
But one of the first things I took away from these two books was to take a risk every day. Doesn’t have to be anything big.
I woke up that morning and asked myself, ‘what risk will I take today?’ I didn’t have an immediate answer, and didn’t even know I was going to do it until I was in the car and on the way. I was so excited!
The hairstylist didn’t quite latch on to my enthusiasm…You know when you go to a salon and tell the stylist to do whatever they want? Most stylists get excited by that — a blank canvas, the chance to be creative, take on a hairstyling challenge.
But no, this one was rather bored by the whole thing. I told her I hadn’t had a proper cut in years, usually just trimming out the split ends myself, and all she could muster up was, ‘yeah, it’s a little uneven.’ A little! Ha. It just made the whole experience that much more fun for me really — I mean, here I was, thinking I was taking this HUGE risk, getting this great new hair cut, and for the stylist it was just another day, just another haircut. Ho hum.
Buy I love my new haircut. It’s actually changed the way I see myself, a little perception-altering jolt I needed to see everything differently.
I hope I’ll wake up every morning and ask myself, “What will I risk today?” And uncover my passion and purpose along the way, always with an eye to the silver linings in all of life’s challenges.
