CARLOS CASTANEDA QUOTE from THE ACTIVE SIDE OF INFINITY

page 106-107 paperback

"It's very very important, don Juan went on, "that you yourself deliberately arrive at that breaking point, or that you create it artificially and intelligently."

"What do you mean by that, don Juan, " I asked, caught in his intriguing reasoning.

"Your breaking point, " he said, "is to discontinue your life as you know it. You have done everything I told you, dutifully and accurately. If you are talented, you never show it. That seems to be your style. You're not slow, but you act as if you were. You're very sure of yourself, but you act as if you were insecure. You're not timid, and yet you act as if you were afraid of people. Everything you do points at one single spot; your need to break all that, ruthlessly."

"But in what way, don Juan? What do you have in mind?" I asked him, genuinely frantic,

"I think everything boils down to one act, " he said, "You must leave your friends. You must say goodbye to them, for good. It's not possible for you to continue on the warrior's path carrying your personal history with you, and unless you discontinue your way of life, I won't be able to go ahead with my instruction."

QUICK REVIEW by Christine Trzyna of LIFE AFTER DEATH by DEEPAK CHOPRA

LIFE AFTER DEATH
by Deepak Chopra C 2006
Harmony Books an Imprint of Crown

BRAIN VERSUS MIND

There is so very much to consider in Deepak Chopra's "Life Afer Death," that opens the wondrous realms of the afterlife to the reader, bridging science and spirituality. As for an excerpt I would like to report on communication, that is to say, the idea that through MIND which is beyond BRAIN itself, not only can humans reveal clairvoyant or other "psychic powers," but so can pets. The idea here is that MIND mysteriously links to all knowledge ever known.

Pages 216-219 tell the story of N'kisi an African Gray parrot with a 700 word vocabulary who seemed to be able to read his owner, Aimee's, mind. In order to experiment, the parrot and the owner were kept out of each other's visual fields and the owner watched television. Aimee had "astonishing stories" to tell researcher Sheldrake: "When she was watching a Jackie Chan movie on television, during one scene with Chan perilously perched on a girder, N'kisi said, "Don't fall down," even with no line of sight to the picture. When an automobile commercial came on next, N'kisi said, "That's my car." Another time Aimee was reading the lines, "The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice," in a book when simultaneously from another room the bird said, "The color is black." (CT) So researcher Sheldrake decided to confirm for himself. Aimee looked a a picture of a girl in a magazine, and with remarkable clarity from the adjoining room the parrot said, "That's a girl."

And so it goes, convincingly.

The idea of MIND as something coexisting but separate from BRAIN isn't foreign to me but in this book it becomes tied in with the idea that if you can imagine something it can manifest.

The back section which reveals book resources the author used may fuel my reading through the fall; so very many books that hold promise to reveal great mysteries!

COMMENTARY ON BLONDIE X OFFENDER

....I had to know so I asked - You just had to Lie....

TAI CHI IS LOST ON ME by Christine Trzyna

TAI CHI IS LOST ON ME

By Christine Trzyna

If you've ever needed slow paced gentle exercise, you've probably been recommended to a Tai Chi class. Tai Chi seems to have more of a guarantee than Yoga does that it will remain slow paced and gentle. Twice now I've studied Tai Chi at low cost classes taught by dedicated devotees. The exercise is said to help you heal faster, keep aging at bay, and prevent major illnesses. Of course many people who practice Tai Chi are also dedicated to healthy lifestyles, careful of what they eat, avoiding smoking, alcohol, and drugs too, so who can say for sure it's the Tai Chi? The other benefit of Tai Chi is that it's supposed to be relaxing.

Unfortunately I've never experienced relaxation by practicing Tai Chi. I am one of those "Monkey Brained" people who gets more bored the slower it goes. "What's next?" I want to know. I quit one class after learning the form over months of time just about when we were to start learning the form backwards. I just didn't see the point. I buy that new circuits wired for Tai Chi develop in your brain after practice. I can probably still do the form years later, without practice. But I never seem to be inspired to do so.

I think mental - intellectual - stimulation is very important to my overall happiness, so I don't want to be bored. That's why it perplexes me that the crossword puzzle set is taking to Tai Chi at senior centers.

Often you hear that Tai Chi is the basis of all martial arts. It was the first monastic means to self protect without harming, a Buddhist traveler's mode. So originally it must have been practiced singularly. Maybe what appeals to the seniors is the Group Mind of it.

Watching a group practicing Tai Chi in unison, the silence of it, is more relaxing to me than being one of the group. Yet Group Mind makes me want to rankle for very Westernized individualism.

I like yoga classes where you can keep your own pace if you fall behind or want to go more slowly, where you aren't stressed or strained, and the exertion of a "good" class leaves me in a final relaxation in which my mind is shut off and I can go off somewhere out there for a spell. Five minutes of this deep rest can be energizing as well, once you come back and go off to a productive day.


C Christine Trzyna 2008

WILL I EVER BE GOOD ENOUGH Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers by KARYL MC BRIDE

WILL I EVER BE GOOD ENOUGH
Healing The Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers
by Karyl McBride, Ph.D. C 2008
Free Press

An article in a fashion magazine lead me to this book about engulfing and/or ignoring mothers who care more about appearances than most, and who are so self-involved as to want their children to not only live up to their expectations but make them proud.




Page 37-38

"Although these two parenting styles are seemingly opposite, to a child raised with either narcissistic style, the impact of the opposite is the same. Your self image becomes distorted and feelings of insecurity seem impossible to shake.... The engulfing mother smothers, seemingly unaware of her daughter's unique needs or desires..... If so it is likely that the natural talents you had, the dreams you wanted to pursue, and maybe even the relationships most important to you were rarely nurtured. Your mother constantly sent messages to you about who she needed you to be instead of validating who you really were. Desperate to merit her love and approval, you conformed, and in the process, lost yourself.

"If you were raised by an ignoring mother, the message she gave you over and over again was that you were invisible. She simply did not have enough room in her heart for you. As a result, you were dismissed and discounted. Children with severe ignoring mothers do not receive even the most basic requirements of food, shelter, clothing, or protection, let alone guidance or emotional support.... Emotional and physical neglect sends you the message that you don't matter.

"Having a narcissistic mother, whether she is engulfing or ignoring makes individuation - a separate sense of self - difficult for a daughter to accomplish. Daughters with unmet emotional needs keep going back to their mothers, hoping to gain their love and respect at a later date. Daughters who have a full emotional "Tank" have the confidence to separate in a healthy fashion, and move on into adulthood....

Page 54 The Secretly Mean
The secretly mean narcissistic mother does not want others to know she is abusive to her children. She usually has a public self and a private self, which are quite different. Daughters of the secretly mean describe their mothers as being kind, loving, and attentive when out in public, and abusive and cruel at home. It is hard not to feel significant resentment toward your mother for this, especially if she fooled a lot of people outside the family...

In Chapter "Where is Daddy?" McBride says that husbands married to narcissistic women live around them. Instead of the parents being a couple with boundaries around them, the husband and children live around the wife/mother's needs.

Page 72
"Oftentimes when Mother is narcissistic, she may be able to do some of the earlier nurturing because she has control of the infant and small child and can mold the child to her wishes. But as the child grows older and develops a mind of her own, the mother loses control and no longer has the same kind of power. This causes the mother to begin her demeaning, critical behavior with the child, in hopes of regaining that control, which is crazy-making for the daughter...

Page 73
"Setting healthy boundaries requires direct statements and clear communication. Narcissistic families commonly have a skewed, ineffective communication style called "triangulation." Instead of the mother talking to the daughter, the mother may express her thoughts and feelings -usually negative and criticizing - to another family member in the hope that he or she will tell the daughter. Then the mother can deny that she said it, although the message somehow got out there anyway. This triangulation in communication is passive aggressive and is an expression of the sentiment "I will get you back, but not directly to your face."

Quote from ANDY SELSBERG in A GRUDGE CAN BE ART from THINGS I'VE LEARNED FROM WOMEN WHO'VE DUMPED ME

Andy Selsberg in his short essay "A Grudge Can Be Art" Lesson #11 in "Things I've Learned From Women Who've Dumped Me"
Edited by Ben Karlin
Grand Central Publishing New York

"The Grudge is a way to show you care, a way to stay connected. It would have been an insult to let what we had be downgraded to a mere polite acquaintanceship or even worse, nothing." - Andy Selsberg

QUICK REVIEW by CHRISTINE TRZYNA of FRANKLIN & LUCY by JOSEPH E. PERSICO

FRANKLIN & LUCY
President Roosevelt, Mrs. Rutherfurd, and the Other Remarkable Women in His Life
by Joseph E. Persico C 2008
Random House New York

REVIEW by Christine Trzyna

The gist of this story is that by the time the polio crippled FDR was in the White House, he had entertained a long term affair with Lucy Mercer ( later Rutherford), a woman of class but without funds, whom Eleanor his wife had hired to be her secretary. Eleanor discovered the affair, wasted away physically, and negotiated a "stay married" deal with FDR's mother, who was holding the money bags. Agreeing to live separate lives, they did so, with the same acknowledgement of their privacy as the press gave FDR to greatly hide the fact that he could not walk or stand unaided. Lucy Mercer, cut off from Franklin, made her own wealthy society marriage, and meanwhile at the White House staff accommodated Eleanor and Franklin's new love interests; In his case a young woman name Missy LeHand who lived there and in her case a lesbian journalist who gave up her career to be with Eleanor, Lorena Hickok.

This book does not "proof" that "lesbian" relationship stating that in Victorian times and in social classes where men and women were kept apart, it was not extraordinary for women to have emotional relationships and write "I love you," in letters. Letters exist. Many have been destroyed. But there were many. Just as we might e-mail today, these women wrote and posted letters to each other most every day, sentimental and feeling, full of assurances that they understood how each other felt, perhaps using language that suggested rather than being explicit.

The suggestion here is that despite Missy and other love interests if not affairs, it was Lucy Mercer Rutherford that was the love of FDR's life.

To change the subject to the economy of the time, when the stock market went down about 90% and 33 % of all Americans were out of work and there was a banking crisis and the Great Depression began - kind of like NOW - page 225 reminds us of what FDR did as president.

"That inauguration day, after he had been sworn in, Roosevelt turned to face a sea of umbrellas and began speaking of the trials that vast numbers of his countrymen still faced. "I see millions of families," he said, "trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day. I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent by so called polite society half a century ago. I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children. I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory and their poverty denying work and productiveness to many other millions. I see one third of a nation ill housed, ill clad, ill nourished. It is not in despair that I paint you that picture. I paint it for you in hope - because the nation, seeing and understanding the injustice in it, proposed to paint it out."

CHRISTINE TRZYNA QUICK REVIEW : THE MAN BEHIND THE DA VINCE CODE By LISA ROGAK

THE MAN BEHIND THE DA VINCI CODE
An Unauthorized Biography of Dan Brown
by Lisa Rogak
Andrews McMeel Publishing Kansas City

This book was interesting for two reasons. It explains how Dan Brown's exposure to Prep Schools and Secret Societies as a student moved him towards that subject matter for his world-wide best seller, The Da Vinci Code, and it explains his writerly life, researching first, heavily plotted schemes before writing, his use of a voice command computer rather than typing, and what went on with his agent and publisher that made the book a very marketable effort, but one that has interfered with his ability to get another book done. Dan Browns wife, Blythe, (a woman behind her man) who was responsible for the strategy of promotion for Dan's music CD's and his earlier books is given ample credit for her contributions to his success.


Page 23

He discovered he possessed a fortitude that was extremely rare among other aspiring young artists. Essentially, Brown couldn't understand how others just like him could fall into a deep depression and give up after only a few months of receiving countless rejection letters. he thought he was missing something because he viewed each rejection as instruction in how he could try harder. With that realization, he knew that Phillips Exeter was responsible. .... "Exeter vaccinated me against the fear of failure," he said.



Page 47
"Besides writing first thing in the morning, Brown also got into the habit of meticulously planning every plot point and twist, each character's relationship with the others, and the forward movement of the story before he wrote even one word of the novel. He realized that the more he knew about the story and its direction in advance, the better. Specifically detailing the tension from one chapter to the next was a great help when the time came for him to actually start writing." .... He knew some novelists wrote blindly, by starting with an idea or image and then writing to see where it would take them. In literary works where the pace moves slowly and tension isn't integral to the plot, Brown could understand this. But the kind of story he wanted to write depended on building lots of suspense, keeping the reader guessing what would happen next, and throwing in lots of surprises - in other words, a page-turning novel....

Page 49-50
"I know I am supposed to name all the great writers who have inspired me, but I'm ashamed to say that I am so buys writing I have almost no time to read anything other than non-fiction and research books," he said. "On vacations I grab some mainstream thriller off the best-seller rack. Not glamorous, I know, but the truth... But there's another reason he shies away from reading current popular fiction. "I read almost exclusively nonfiction, because I am always researching the next novel, but I don't like to read fiction when I'm writing because it tends to color what I am doing," he said.



Page 61 (On marketing his first book, Digital Fortress)
"Brown pulled out all the stops. He had learned from promoting his music that you never knew how someone could help you, so he prepared postcards with an image of the cover of the book on one side and reviews, comments, and a toll-free ordering number of the other. He also devised a succinct motto for the novel: "The government's greatest secret is that they know all of yours." He sent the cards to everyone he had ever known in the music business, as well as to his fellow classmates at Amherst College and Phillips Exeter.

Page 71
"Seasoned authors - and even those with only one book under their belt like Brown - quickly come to realize that once the manuscript has been handed in, their responsibilities to the production phase of publishing are over. Of course, he'd have to answer copy editing questions and check the galleys for typos, but typically only the art department and the sales force have the final say over the content and design of the cover.

ASTRONAUTS DIARY SURVIVES FALL TO EARTH FROM EXPLODED SHUTTLE

Ramon Ilan, Israels first astronaut, and one of the six who died when the shuttle exploded entering earth's atmosphere February 1st, 2003, wrote a diary while he was aboard and by some miracle a portion of it survived. Click on the title above to get to the story featured on Yahoo News.

QUICK REVIEW: THE JESUS PAPERS by MICHAEL BAIGENT

QUICK REVIEW by Christine Trzyna
THE JESUS PAPERS BY MICHAEL BAIGENT

c 2006 by author

Harper San Francisco

I'm reading this book because the famous "Da Vinci Code" author Dan Brown based some of his fiction book research on what Baigent and others of the same intention published as non-fiction, the search for the truth about Jesus. Some say that Dan Brown and his ilk have wanted to dismantle Christianity or the Church (Catholic, but all other Christian faiths that believe in the divinity of Jesus, that he died on the cross for our sins, and through him we have eternal salvation of our souls) through revealing what supposedly the Knights Templer and the Masons have long known; that Jesus survived through a carefully conspired plot, he and his wife Mary Magdalena fled to France, where they had children, and their heirs became known as the Merovingian Kings.


Baigent is one of several authors who are akin to the gentleman travelers of the turn of the 20th century, wealthy men of inheritance mostly who were the unwitting founders of the social science of anthropology. And I am with them on their mountain climbs, sea voyages, and travels across the world, investigating, digging up, and experiencing...and coming up with theories and proofs that perhaps the contemporary establishment of anthropology would debunk. So I'm a sucker for a book that has so many color photos of important temples and underground spiritual centers that he has explored.

He is also on the quest of the Historical Jesus, rather than one of faith, or the one invented to be divine after the fact of life.


Page 39

On page 39 Baigent explains, "According to the gospels, through his father (Joseph), Jesus was of the Line of David, through his mother, he was of the line of Aaron the high Priest (Mathew 1:1 16 Luke 1:5,36;2:4). We suddenly get an understanding of his importance to the Zealot cause when we realize that because of his lineage he was heir to both lines. He was a "double" messiah; having inherited both the royal and priestly lines, he was a "Messiah of Aaron and Israel," a figure, as we have seen, who was clearly noted in the Dead Sea Scrolls. And we take as an expression of this fact Pilate's supposedly ironic sign placed at the foot of the cross: This is Jesus The King of the Jews (Matthew 27,37.)

Page 118-119
"Imagine the problem the Zealots, whose entire focus was the removal or destruction of Rome's hold over Judea, had organized a dynastic marriage between Joseph, a man of the royal line of David, and Mary, of the priestly line of Aaron, in order to have a child, Jesus - the "Savior" of Israel - who was both rightful king and high priest."

Egyptology is of interest to me. Baigent goes on about the religious beliefs of the Egyptians. Page 169,

"Dr. Jeremy Naydler, who has made a study of the deeper mysteries expressed in the Egyptian texts, stresses that we must never allow ourselves to forget the experiential (my emphasis) nature of these ancient religious writings."

Speaking of Egyptian temple rituals using the terminology appropriate, Baigent mentions some notions that I believe are equivalent to Hindu spiritual belief and practice, notions that move across cultural lines.

Page 169
"Under usual circumstances, this state would translate as "sleep," but in this specific ritual context, it indicates something more akin to a state of trance or meditation. Its main use, scholars think, was during the animation rite for sacred statues called "the Opening of the Mouth" when divine power was called down to reside in the statue, which was thereby rendered sacred. This same rite also formed part of the funerary practices. it is evident, in the latter case at least, that while in this ritual state the priest somehow moved into the world of the dead, the Far-World, and that on his return he was able to describe what he had experienced as a dead person.... seems to have happened regularly during these rituals.

Page 170
"We can be confident, I would suggest, that this ritual journey was not just an intellectual invention or some kind of priestly drama, a "pious fraud" that provided smoke and noise enough to impress but little true fire.

Around the late third to early fourth centuries A.D. the philosopher Iamblichus of Apamea, one of the most prominent Platonic scholars of his era, was teaching in what is now Lebanon. His teaching was centered upon what he called THEURGY,... that is, "working with" the gods. He contrasted this with THEOLOGY - "Talking about" the gods. He was interested in practical effects rather than intellectual argument; he wanted his students to know, not just to believe.

(THEURY IS A NEW WORD for me!)