Silence, Space and Listening for Wisdom: Mark Nepo's Seven Thousand Ways to Listen

So there is a cluster of books that I have on my bookshelf that have been signposts along my path, companions on the journey toward greater and greater humility.  They are:  Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to What is Sacred by Mark Nepo, The Wisdom of Listening - a collection of essays edited by Mark Brady, The Ragged Edge of Silence - a memoir by John Francis,  Solitude: A Return to the Self by Anthony Storr and Solitude: Seeking Wisdom in Extremes by Bob Krull.

The book that I am currently re-reading first is Seven Thousand Ways to Listen. In his introduction Mark says the following as he is settling in to sleep, with his Lab breathing beside him and the wind blowing outside: 

"There, in the silence that's never quite silent, I realized that if there are at least seven thousand ways to speak [referring to the # of languages in the world], there are at least seven thousand ways to listen.  And just how few we know.  

The many ways to listen have been reaching into me for years.  To enter into deep listening, I've had to learn how to keep emptying and opening, how to keep beginning.  I've had to lean into all that I don't understand, accepting that I am changed by what I hear."

Over the last five or six years, I am more and more coming to the realization that my quick and impatient nature means that I don't slow down enough to listen well.  Even when things are on the written page, my brain scans it really quickly, processes it and moves on to the next thing on the list of things. Only later, when I have, for whatever reason, to go back - do I realize that I have missed a nuance or simply completely misread something.  

In order to listen, I have to:

• slow the breath down, 
• focus on now, and 
• be present.  

Some days are better than others.  

As Mark states later in his introduction to the book: 

We must honour that listening is a personal pilgrimage that takes time and a willingness to circle back.  With each trouble that stalls us and each wonder that lifts us, we are asked to put down our conclusions and feel and think anew.  Unpredictable as life itself, the practice of listening is one of the most mysterious, luminous and challenging art forms on Earth.  Each of us is by turns a novice and a master, until the next difficulty or joy undoes us.

The book is structured as a series of practices where the author reflects on a particular spiritual topic and how he has experienced this in his own life.  The reader is then offered a series of personal reflections and a series of reflections to share with others.  As an example, in the chapter that I am working through now, In the Presence of Sages, the author asks the reader to journal about the following questions:

1. Along the way, we discover a Wisdom Lineage we are a part of; a family of beings we are most at home with. How would you describe the Wisdom Lineage you are a part of?  What tribe of beings do you belong to?


2. Identify one constellation of your Wisdom Lineage by naming three beings, living or from the past, that you feel a spiritual kinship with and share why.


3. What is it about each - their life and work - that you count as part of your foundation and wisdom worldview?


4. If you don't know your Wisdom Lineage: Who are you drawn to?  How will you find out more about them? Go and find your teachers.

And so I'm off to do some journalling ... I'll blog more about The Seven Thousand Ways to Listen as I move through it and then come back to the other books that I referenced in introduction to explore their wisdom.

Ransom Riggs: On Photographs, Children and Peculiarity

I originally looked at Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children when it was out in hardcover on the new releases table at Indigo.  I was intrigued by the concept of how Ransom Riggs found his inspiration for the story in the vintage photos he collected, where often the really peculiar photos were of children.  I was intrigued, though not enough to pick it up in hardcover.  So a few weeks ago when it came out as trade, I decided "why not?"  

I'll wait until I'm done reading to post the whole 'review' but wanted to capture my thoughts partway through because, sometimes by the time I get to the end I have forgotten my initial emotional response.

Book the First Half

It is a book about a boy who had a peculiar grandfather, who may or may not have been a peculiar child, who tries to warn his grandson about the monsters in the dark.  In the beginning of the tale, it is not clear whether the grandfather is suffering from dementia, delusions from trauma having been the only family member to survive the Holocaust or whether, perhaps, just maybe, there are monsters lurking in the woods.

In unravelling the mystery of his grandfather's past as a way to reconcile himself to his grandfather's death - Jacob finds his way to a remote Welsh island where he explores the orphanage that took his grandfather in after his escape from the WWII and finds a little more mystery than anticipated.

I'm about 1/2 way through the novel so far and it's not a bad read but I am not WOWED.  This is a book where I read a chapter here, I read a chapter there but don't feel compelled to commit. It did not suck me straight in and then spit me back out the other end when it was all done.  I'm trying to figure out why.  

It's perfectly well written.  So far the story is not bad.  Nothing particularly oomph in terms of the dialogue but it's okay.  It's not my normal fare in terms of YA.  I tend to prefer dystopias but I'm not sure that would account for my mediocre reaction ... hmm ... 

I am a little confused at the moment on how the "science" of the world of the peculiars works. But that in itself would not be sufficient to explain my meh reaction. If I start to poke even a tiny bit at Pacific Rim or Loopers or Inception the "science" doesn't hold up and I LOVE those movies passionately. Hmm ... 

I'm also not sure that I really relate to Jacob as the protagonist. I am trying to figure out why. He's a kid who is actively engaged in figuring things out. His parents are both a bit on the annoying side so I completely get his response to them. What I'm not sure on, is my response to him. Maybe I'll figure that out in the latter half of the book.  We shall see. 

Book the Second Half

My reaction to the book didn't change much through the second half. It's an interesting concept, the photos are woven in with the text so there's an rich visual dimension to the reading experience, however, the science of the world continued to nag at me.  

As best as I could figure out the rules/science on which the story operates, the loops are accessed via a portal - in the case of the Welsh island, a burial cairn - which accesses the same place as the earthside/nowside of the portal, into an alternative version that loops a single day over and over.  It is part of what preserves the peculiars from aging - except the "science" shifted at the end where the loop failed to reset. That would mean that the alternative loop is not stuck on a single point in history but somehow the peculiars have intervened with the time in that dimension to keep re-setting it ... 

Maybe it will get articulated more clearly in the second book as they continue their voyage from the island back to the main coast of Wales to chase down the wights.

It's a debut novel as well - so I expect the writing will continue to get stronger and some of the other elements discussed above will hopefully get sorted out.  

An entertaining, even if not riveting, read.

Carol Berg's Lighthouse Duet

August 5, 2013

At some point earlier this year, Carol Berg announced that she was finishing up Dust and Light, the opening novel in her Sanctuary Duet.  You would have to understand how deeply and immensely I LOVED the Lighthouse Duet, the original two books set in Navronne, in order to understand with how much giddy glee I danced at the news that there would be two more books set in that world.

And so, in preparation for the upcoming release of Dust and Light, I have decided to re-read the Lighthouse Duet as it has been a few years since I turned the pages in either tome.

As part of the preparation for going back and re-reading, I've been looking at some of the reviews at the time the books were released and it's fascinating to me that the emotional resonance that these two novels had for me, has little, if anything, to do with what the reviews highlighted.  Reviewers spoke about the books as a "coming-of-age" adventure and about "a troubled world full of politics, anarchy and dark magic."

While both those reviews are 'true' in a surface sense, for me, the books went much deeper than just a generic boy comes of age fantasy tale.  The novels were about the bones of civilization, about the threads that bind and what happens when they start to fray.  The works spoke deeply to me about the nature of memory and, in the process of determining what should be preserved about a civilization, what it tells us about who we are, and our place and time in the river of history.


I am reminding myself that as my spiritual home, my roots are in history, literature, and archeology so those themes would have resonated more powerfully with me.  I'm interested to see how that may or may not have shifted for me, in re-reading Flesh and Spirit and Breath and Bone three years later.  Looking forward to seeing what remains behind for me on this immersion into the world of the Danae and the Navronne.

This was also the first time that I really loved the cover art for Carol's books.  The artwork moved away from standard fantasy art fare to something much more evocative and ethereal which really suited the stories.  

The cover artist is Luis Roya.

And here is the first excerpt from Light and Dust.  I have read it and am happy to report that it has set my expectations high that I will love Sanctuary in the same way I loved the Lighthouse.

Myke Cole: The Warrior Wordsmith

I started reading Myke's books because I have a soft spot for veterans, especially those who have served in Iraq/Afghanistan and I have a soft spot for folks in the reserves.(Myke continues to serve his country as a reservist in the US Coast Guard as a search and rescue warrior). 

However that, in and of itself, would not have been enough to keep me turning the pages on his debut series Shadow Ops  or recommending him as an author because, let's face it, there are more than a few veterans who are now writing, and not all of what is being written is worth the death of the tree upon which it is printed. 

No, I kept reading Myke's books because he is a damn good storyteller and writer. 

The Shadow Ops series is classified as Military Fantasy. [Get it? Evil Grin]. For some reason that makes my brain go xxx-rated places but that's the sub-genre so I guess I'll just have to deal with the fact that it's a little more PG than some of the other military fantasies that might be on my TBR pile :p. 

I wasn't sure that I would like the series.   In some weird, uninformed, prejudiced way I had initially thought that the premise seemed a bit RPG. I have no idea why I thought that and, even if it had been, there's anything wrong with RPG - it's just not part of my own personal nerd experience. 

Digression Alert

I will say that I uber loved watching Myke Cole and Saladin Ahmed Co-DM a Keep on the Borderlands D&D game at Epic Confusion in Michigan in 2012.  You can read Myke's blog about RPG's and what they meant to both him and other authors as well as the experience of being Co-DM for a group of RPG'ing epic authors here.

You can watch the 2012 game video  here.

And they did it again in 2013. To view click here.

And I fully endorse Wil Wheaton's definition to a newly birthed nerd girl about why the nerd/geek word and world is awesome. If you haven't seen that video, put everything down and go watch it immediately here, and then tell me if that from-the-heart blessing from Wil does not just break your heart right open!

And finally, Pat Rothfuss hosted an episode of The Story Board focused on video-game storytelling which has started to re-educate my sense of the story in gaming.  You can view that here. The bottom line is that I suck at role-playing and that probably just makes me jealous of those who can throw themselves into it without self-consciousness ... :)  

End Digression Alert

So, to get back to the regularly scheduled review of Myke Cole as author as opposed to Myke as Co-DM.

You can read Michael Jone's book review for Control Point on Tor's site here.

and a review of Fortress Frontier (also on the Tor site) by Stefan Raets here.

The main character in the initial book Control Point is a POC.  It amazes me how unusual this is.  But Oscar Britton is no token POC.  He is not there to make some kind of diversity point.  Oscar is just Oscar and he happens to be a POC. I did wonder, though the book was published prior to the actual event, in a world of Floridas and Travyon Martins, in a world of one percents vs ninety-nine percents - if the reason that Oscar went AWOL after he is captured when his latent magic of Portmancy bursts into uncontrolled life, was in part due to his knowing how he would be treated as a black man.  Guilty until proven innocent, and perhaps, guilty even then.

I loved Oscar Britton as a fully realized, complex dude with a complicated father-son relationship (which for some reason reminded me of the relationship between Ben Meecham and his father, Lt. Col. Wilbur "Bull" Meecham, in Pat Conroy's The Great Santini ... a book that I LOVED when I first read it in high school).   

Bottom Line I:  Great storytelling, great multi-dimensional characters (pun intended), solid world-building, and great dialogue.

Bottom Line II:  Myke Cole's Shadow Ops series is well worth investing in and immersing yourself in.  Currently under production is the third novel, Breach Zone.  Myke has a contract for an additional three novels in the series and the fourth, Gemini Cell is coming out in 2015.

Click here for Myke's site.  You can also find him on FB here and twitter here.

Cover art is by Larry Rostant.

[Editors Note: Apologies for the font size issues - I'll try to get them sorted out but for the moment don't have time to go into the coding to fix ... ]

[Editor's Comment:  August 18, 2013 - It is weird but there are lots of folks out there who have a real hate-on for Oscar.  I get what they are concerned about - that at the first sign of trouble he broke and ran.  That he ended up through certain choices he made with lots of collateral damage all around him but I guess my anti-authoritarian and libertarian streaks saved the character for me as I probably wouldn't have trusted the government further than I could spit into a cross-wind either.]

Neil Gaiman: Come Away oh Human Child, to the Waters and the Wild

Yes, Neil Gaiman makes me think of Yeats.  Specifically of those poems that Yeats crafted, filled with the soul of all that is mythic in Eire. Gaiman is a consummate myth-creator and an interpeter and tracker of the journey of the human soul, from origin to origin to origin and back again across the Veil.  Neil is the Travelling Storyteller.  Some days, I wonder if he is Taliesin Ben Beirdd, Chief of Bards, reincarnated.  He is, there is no doubt, of the Bardic Blood; a Druid in blue jeans.  You have only to read his wonderful piece of poetry The Instructions, to understand that Gaiman is the Guide to those of us on the Fool's Journey. Or better yet, listen to him provide those instructions here.  He knows the rules for surviving in the worlds of the elder gods.  

He navigates this world, and all the worlds in between, and he opens the doors for those of us who may not know, or who may have forgotten, how to cross-over, how to walk the in-between.  Gaiman is a virtuoso of the darkness that lurks beneath the fingernails of our civilized selves.  He gives voice to the shadow of the wolf on the wall behind us, as she throws her head back and howls to the moon when the chain-makers and cage-crafters threaten her path of freedom.
  
I could give you reviews of American Gods, or of Stardust, or of Coraline.  But others, much more versed in such things, have given reviews much better than I could write because, in all honesty, it's been a while since I have read them.  I have read everything he has written, with the exception of the Sandman graphic novels.  They are on my list of graphic novels, at the top of that list, to be clear.  I am just trying to clear the backlog on ye olde TBR pile before giving myself over to the visual delights of graphic novels.  

So instead, I'll give you the review I just wrote of the Neil himself's last book The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

I don't often write reveiws, but Neil Gaiman asked folks if they had read the book to review it; to boost the signal if they liked it.  And so, because this may be the book I have loved the most on reading it for the first time and the third time; a fall straight into love with it, a plummet straight over the edge of "I love this book so much I am buying it in hardcover" love, I am boosting the signal. 

I'm not sure that the Neil needs a signal boost, but the man did ask.  And he is a lovely man who loves libraries and who spins a yarn that will transport to you to all the best of the dark places of childhood. He writes a lovely tale of terror and redemption, of memory and forgetting, of truth and wonder, of belief and knowing, of adults and children, of living and death, of the old ones and the proper respect that must be paid. All these things. And many other things but those are the ones that remain with me lo these many weeks after reading.

If you want a better more literary review you could check out author A.S. Byatt's review in The Guardian here.

Or you could google Pat Rothfuss and the title Ocean at the End of the Lane - though I have to warn you - his review is also a song of praise and love ;) :p [Also, if you are too lazy to google, I did embed the link to Pat's review in the previous post on Pat's books]

For those of you who have children who like to read about the things that go bump in the night and how even when we are little, with the right help, at the right time, in the right way, we can come through the other side of the night, a little wiser, a little older, a little stronger - buy them this book. If this is true for you, even though mayhap you are not so young any more, this book is still for you :)

One other thing to note of interest about Neil.  He was recently involved in a creative project on the launch of Blackberry10 called the Keep Moving Project.  Here's the spiel from Neil's project page:

Neil Gaiman asked fans around the world to help him tell a new kind of story. A few weeks, thousands of Tweets, twelve stories and a galaxy of art later, A Calendar of Tales was born. 

It’s now ready for the world to see, in a beautiful digital book. Have a look, see who contributed, or watch Neil’s videos to find out more about the making of A Calendar of Tales. 

A huge thank you is due to everyone who took part in this project. Your energy and imagination inspired Neil, and now, can inspire the world.

You can check out Neil's website here. 

Pat Rothfuss: Fantasy of the EPIC Kind

The Kingkiller Chronicles are a trilogy written by an awesome and friendly giant with an epic beard. To date, books the First and the Second have been published.  They are beautifully written, lyrically crafted and rendered; they are a storyteller's story.  They are catnip for readers who love the story.  The first is The Name of the Wind, the second is A Wise Man's Fear.  To quote: “There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in a storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.”

We all wait impatiently for Book the Third entitled The Doors of Stone.  But we know that Pat Rothfuss, to paraphrase Neil Gaiman's defense of George R.R. Martin, "is not [our] bitch." So some of us wait more patiently than others - because craft and art ought not to be rushed.  Like a good stew, it should be cooked slowly, with great care, allowing the flavours to burst and the meat to melt as they are savoured.

The books are epic in the same sense as Lord of the Rings or George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones series.  Pat's books I double-down on and have both the e-version and the mass market.  Some people triple- or quadra-down by also purchasing the hardcovers and the trade, but I don't love anyone that much :p ...



Pat also has two deliciously dark and dangerous, wonderfully illustrated "not for children children's stories." The first is The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle (The Thing Beneath the Bed), illustrated by Nate Taylor and published by Subterranean Press.  It has three different endings, each deliciously more subversive and dark.  If you don't like the dark side of childhood terrors :), well then maybe you are not for the Princess and the Princess is not for you.  The second book, in colour, The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle: The Dark of Deep Below, is due out from Subterranean later this year (2013).  To order, click here:



The other squee thing to note is that Pat's Kingkiller books have now been optioned by Fox (not the news station but the movie studio).  With the success of HBO's version of GRRM's GOT, I am hoping that the adaptation of Pat's books will be equally professionally executed.

If you can't tell by how much I have written, Pat is one of the authors in the SFF tribe that I adore - if one can adore a stranger :p ... He created Worldbuilders, a charity where he leverages his readers and his fellow authors to raise funds for Heifer International (HI).  To read more about his charity and about HI click here:  here.  

He is also a feminist - one of a tribe of author brothers who are ... This gives me hope (along with John Scalzi and Jim Hines as other, though not the only, notables in this regard).
And so, his blog is one that I read regularly.  I love the fact that the blog is a celebration of being human and being a father to Oot (not the offspring's official name :p) [To read his blog, click here].  Pat is on Facebook and has interacted with me once or twice. Look him up.  I cannot remember whether he tweets but I suspect he does.  

I love when he gets giddy over meeting Neil Gaiman.  I love the book review he wrote on Neil's latest book on goodreads. To read that paen of love under Patrick's Reviews to Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane, click here.  You can also, obviously, read other reviews of books by Pat at that link but the Gaiman one is the best.

He also has a great Google+ Hangout, The Story Board, that he does on Felicia Day's Geek & Sundry Channel on You Tube where he hangs out with a bunch of different author tribespeople and talks writing whatever the genre or medium ... The hangouts are approximately once a month for about an hour (or longer) and he's had some awesome talent on.  Eight episodes so far (up to March 2013 - the season might be over now.  It's not clear.) - Click and view here.

And not quite last, and definitely not least, Pat Rothfuss is the man who finally lured me onto the Kickstarter site to support a project.  To be specific THIS project. - Originally, the goal was $10,000 but we are loyal and devoted and mayhaps even fanatical minions and the project ended up being subscribed to the tune of $589,660.  Yes.  That's right.  That's how much I want a pack of playing cards based on the Kingkiller Chronicles even though I don't play cards. Or dice.  I may have to start :p

I urge you to read everything that Pat writes - including his blog.  I will be perfectly honest.  I urge you to do this for purely selfish reasons.  I want Pat to keep writing and if I can add readers to his stable of minions then he can keep being the creative, madly genius crafter of words and story that he is.

Book Series and Author Recommendations

So a number of friends ask me for recommendations of books/series/authors to read. I believe that it may have something to do with the fact that I read on average around 180 to 200 plus books per year. 



Some of these are books where I go in to the store and make the floor dude go down to the back room even though it is 9 a.m. on release day to get me a copy NOW. I have also been known to look on the shelving cart, even after they tell me they can't find the book. Just. In. Case.



Some of the books are ones that I download at midnight on my e-reader on release day, just so that I can get to it right away. And then I go buy the mass market because it so deliciously good that I need to have it on my shelf as well as in a "to-go" format.



Some are my "I really enjoy this writer but I can wait until the next time I'm in the 'hood to pick it up at the bookstore" books while others are the "I'm waiting until my favourite author releases his/her next in the series book and you are an enjoyable way to pass the time until then" books.

Originally I was thinking of doing this by genre but I have a hard time sorting out: "Is author/series x or is it y?" So I tend to blur it all together - like nutella and peanut butter on a cracker. My peeps on the Book of Face arrived at a compromise between the alpha vs. genre sorters.  I have been requested to go with the alpha but have the genre in (brackets) beside the author's name or the series name.

And then I started to write the note and realized that I am not so much providing a review:  Score x on plot, pacing, character development, worldbuilding, continuities etc., but rather I come at author recommendations from a place of love (or hate - but I'm not likely to post publicly about those). So my first "review"/"recommendation"/"love song" is for Pat Rothfuss.  Stay tuned and read long and prosper.

The Peace and Conflict Reading List So Far (2006 - 2013)

Read so far:

• Kabul Beauty School (Afghanistan) - by Deborah Rodriguez
• Opium Season (Afghanistan) - by Joel Hafvenstein
• Fifteen Days: Stories of Bravery, Friendship, Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army (Afghanistan) - by Christie Blatchford
• Outside the Wire: The War in Afghanistan in the Words of its Participants - edited by Kevin Patterson and Jane Warren
• Canada in Afghanistan: The War so Far - by Peter Pigott
• On the Road to Kandahar (Afghanistan) - by Jason Burke
• The Prince of Marshes (Iraq) - by Rory Stewart
• The Places in Between (Afghanistan) - by Rory Stewart
• The Forever War (Iraq) - by Dexter Filkins
• The Things They Carried (Vietnam) - by Tim O'Brien
• Off to War: Voices of Soldiers' Children (Afghanistan/Iraq) - by Deborah Ellis
• The Long Walk Home: Paul Franklin's Journey from Afghanistan - by Liane Faulder
• Enduring the Freedom: A Rogue Historian in Afghanistan - by Sean Maloney
• FOB Doctor: A Doctor on the Front-Lines in Afghanistan - by Capt. Ray Wiss, M.D.
• A Line in the Sand: Canadians at War in Afghanistan - by Capt. Ray Wiss, M.D.
• A Solider First: Bullets, Bureaucrats & the Politics of War - by Gen. Rick Hillier
• The Unexpected War: Canada in Afghanistan - by Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang
• Clearing the Way: Combat Engineers in Kandahar - edited by Maj. Mark Gasporotto
• On Assignment in Afghanistan: Maritimers at War - by Chris Lambie
• Kandahar Tour: The Turning Point in Canada's Afghan Mission (Afghanistan) - by Lee Windsor and David Charters
• Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War (Iraq) - by Matt Gallagher
• Witness to War: Reporting on Afghanistan 2004 - 2009 - by Adam Day
• A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear (Afghanistan) - by Atiq Rahimi
• Earth and Ashes (Afghanistan) - by Atiq Rahimi
• The Patience Stone (Afghanistan) - by Atiq Rahimi
• BeLonging: New Poetry by Iranians Around the World (Poetry) - edited by Niloufar Talebi
• Joker One: A Marine Platoon's Story of Courage, Leadership and Brotherhood (Iraq) - Donovan Campbell
• Every Man in this Village is a Liar: An Education in War (Mid and Far East) - by Megan Stack
• War (Afghanistan) - by Sebastian Junger
• The Patrol: Seven Days in the Life of a Canadian Soldier in Afghanistan - by Ryan Flavelle
• The Savage War: The Untold Battles of Afghanistan - by Murray Brewster
• Highway of Heroes: True Patriot Love (Afghanistan) - by Pete Fisher
• War Reporting for Cowards (Iraq) - by Chris Ayers
• The Taliban Don't Wave (Afghanistan) - by Rob Semper
• First In: An Insider's Account of how the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan - by Gary C. Schroen
• First Soldiers Down: Canada's Friendly Fire Deaths in Afghanistan - by Ron Corbett
• Lethal Warriors: When the New Band of Brothers Came Home (Iraq) - by David Philips
• Pale Blue Hope: Death and Life in Asian Peacekeeping - by Ron S. Poulton  
• Paradise General: Riding the Surge at a Combat Hospital in Iraq - by Dr. Dave Hinda
• On Call in Hell: A Doctor's Iraq War Story - by Cdr. Richard Jadick
• Rule Number Two: Lessons I Learned in a Combat Hospital (Iraq) - by Dr. Heidi Squier Kraft 
• Not on My Watch: The 21st Century Combat Medic - (Iraq/Afghanistan) by Josh Peters and Josh Fansler
• Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan and the Home Front in the Words of U.S. Troops - edited by Andrew Carroll