3 X 5's: Index Card Wisdom from Best of Books

RECIPES Laura Archera Huxley (1963, 2021). You Are Not the Target. Laura was a concert violinist and therapist; here she presents 33 ways to inner happiness, or "recipes for living and loving." some starting points: feeling the energies in our bodies allows us to redirect and consciously transform the negative to positive energy a "recipe" is a method to test out in our everyday life...the recipe can be modified to suit the individual and/or circumstance   for practice, my 2 favorite recipes: you are not the target many times we experience negativity from others that is a consequence of a longer causal chain that has little to do with us personally, i.e., we are not the target! we can transform the negative energy by being aware of it and consciouslly contract our muscles (unobtrusive ones like abdominal, or leg, or buttocks...) 10 times quickly...in this way we beautify our bodies by redirecting the negative energy for a positive purpose (like strengthening our abs...

MARRIAGE Mary Balogh (2009). First Comes Marriage. This is the first of 4 books in the Huxtable series set in the Regency era of England. Elliot Wallace is Viscount Lyngate who visits a country village to inform a family that their younger brother is now the Earl of Merton...his 3 sisters follow him to London to learn the ways of polite society...one sister, Vanessa, offers herself to Elliot to save her older sister Meg, and Elliot accepts the marriage of convenience, and in time, they both learn about each other's pain, experience some healing, and begin to cultivate a loving relationship. Favorite quotes: "...only one thing at which he had excelled...He had loved. Always and unconditionally..." (p.4) "Perfection ought to be aimed for...even if it is not always possible to achieve. Anything worth doing ought to be done well." (p.226) "Life is good. Even when good people die far too young and older people betray us, life is good. Life is what we make it. We...

ROAR Don Campbell (1989, 2000). The Roar of Silence: Healing Powers of                                                           Breadth, Tone, and Music. While Campbell studied piano at a conservatory in France, i could not find any educational degree associated with his name, although some sources say he earned degrees in music from University of North Texas. He is the author of more than 20 books, including the Mozart Effect . In this book, he describes his life story and international music career that led to a health crisis and healing through music which became his passion, including drumming, singing, dancing, and music production. Each chapter contains content, meditation, and practice sections. One is encouraged to complete one chapter each week, performing the meditation and practice each day before moving on ...

TRANSFORMATIVE Ralph Metzner (2022, orig. 1997). The Unfolding Self:                                                              Varieties of Transformative Experience Metzner has a PhD in clinical psychology from Harvard and taught at the California Institute for Integral Studies for over 30 years. There is a summary journal article of the book published in 1990 called, Ten Classical Metaphors for Self-Transformation in the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology . The sources for the book are east and west religion/spirituality, mythology, philosophy, shamanism, yoga, anthropology, transpersonal and depth psychology...he frames the work as "nonstatical research" and includes many stories, some personal, some from students, some from the sources above. Thesis: consciousness, the field in which thoughts, sen...

PERFECT Mary Balogh (2021). Someone Perfect . This is the last of the 10 books in Balogh's Westcott series set in the Regency era of England. In this novel, Justin Wiley, Earl of Brandon, was banished by his now dead father, returning to take care of his half sister Maria whose friend Lady Estelle Lamarr agrees to help settle her at Everleight Park (her and Justin's childhood home). Justin and Estelle slowly become friends, then lovers, and marry, bringing the two families (Wiley and Lamarr) together. Quotes: Sometimes, just one person can pull a whole family apart [Maria's mother]. And sometimes, it just takes one person [Justin] to pull it back together.  The people who have been central to our lives are always there in us and always will be, even when they are no longer alive and we are not actually thinking about them. She felt herself relax as she brought the whole of her attention back to the scene around her--and in her. For of course she was a part of the scene, rig...

AWESOME Neil Pasricha (2010). The Book of Awesome. Pasricha claims to be a "regular guy" who works an "office job." He started a website after work some time ago called 1000 awesome things. His mom forwarded the site to his dad and soon people started emailing him with their own "awesome things." This book is a collection of those awesome things. The format of the book is a one sentence description of the awesome thing followed by a short (1-2 page) narration, often stories from the author's life that elaborate on the awesome thing. I appreciate how ordinary, simple, fun, and somewhat profound these little "awesome things" are.  Feeling the wonder and beauty of the tiny joys in life is AWESOME! Some of my favorite awesome things from the book: high 5 babies fixing electronics by smaking them hitting a bunch of green lights in a row smell of new crayons licking the batter off the beaters of a cake mixer popping bubble wrap       

  SILENT PLANET C.S. Lewis (1938).  Out of the Silent Planet. Lewis was a professor of literature at Oxford and Cambridge. He wrote 30 books. This is the 1st of 3 books in his space trilogy. Ransom (a professor of philology) is kidnapped by two men and taken to Malacandra (Mars) where he escapes and comes to know the hnau who live in harmony with nature and are guided by the elida (spirit beings). He learns that earth is the "silent planet" and ruled by the "bent one" (evil one). He returns to earth a changed man. We are not the center of the universe and need to live in harmony with nature and others. Practice nurturing harmony with nature: find a plant outside (or if you live in a place without access to nature outside, a plant in a windowsill will do), and do one thing for on behalf of the plant's well being (water, fertilizer, prune, reposition so it get more--or less--sun), place your hand near the heart of the plant and offer a blessing...