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In Being Bodies, Lenore Friedman and Susan Moon offer the perspectives of a variety of women with varying Buddhist practices. The result is a contemplative and compelling work dealing with what it means to be female, what it means to fully and consciously inhabit the female body.

The last wave of the Western women’s movement critiqued the idea that a women was her body. In fact, a major focus of that movement was the position that biology was not destiny. This was primarily a response to the social construction of women’s identity, the objectification of a women as nothing more than physical self. However, there was little offered to support women in learning to fully live in that physicality, to know it as both vessel and endpoint. Being Bodies offers a view that a woman’s self-knowledge is rooted in the flesh. Women’s awareness is based in surrendering to the body’s impermanence, its joy, its suffering, and its death. One of the most thought-provoking essays is Linda Chrisman’s "Birth".

In it, she describes the process of labor, and giving birth to her son. What's striking about this experience was how Chrisman was both deeply enmeshed in that process and separate from it. The most telling lesson, for both Chrisman and the reader, occurred at the height of labor. Here she realizes that all her physical conditioning, all her contemplative practice would not save her from pain. This selection beautifully illustrates the message of Being Bodies. There may be another path for women, rooted in surrender to the fullness and limits of the body. Through that choice, a woman may find self-knowledge and ultimately, freedom. While the focus of Being Bodies is the female experience, it is a universal and object lesson about Buddhist ideas of impermanence, and becoming fully present in every moment by letting go. I was moved to tears reading this book. It reminds me that true beauty is the sum of both pleasing things as well the scars.

I feel such a strong, visceral connection to the stories of the women profiled in this anthology. (Interesting that "visceral" is the only word that comes to mind in reviewing a book dealing with the experience of being grounded in the body and the odyssey of transcendence.) This book is a pivotal one as I try to develop a deeper spiritual practice - moving East in order to come West, hoping to re-encounter and reinterpret my own ideas of embodiment, spirituality and existence.

ISBN-10: 1570623244 ISBN-13: 978-157062324

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So, after I posted yesterday, I saw that I had missed 2 very important updates!

1. The new issue of The Edge of the Forest is up! Check it out! Lots of awesome articles, plus 2 reviews by yours truly (My Last Best Friend by Julie Bowe and Reality Leak by Jodi Sensel-- both are great reads!)

2. The new Carnival of Children's Lit is up over at Wizard's Wireless. My contribution is actually my Geek Buffet post about the Xela Awards... check it out!

And now, a review of 2 books off the big scary list! (And a break because they're both Adult Nonfiction)

First up is Ten Thousand Miles Without a Cloud Sun Shuyun

This book isn't available in the US, so I had to order it from England after reading her The Long March: The True History of Communist China's Founding Myth.

In Ten Thousand Miles Without a Cloud, Sun sets out to retrace the journey of Xuanzang, a Buddhist monk who traveled to India at the start of the Tang Dynasty to learn Sanskrit and bring back new sutras to Chinese Buddhists. (His travels being the basis of Chinese classic, Journey to the West.)

Not a Buddhist herself, Sun is searching for her grandmother's faith, and Xuanzang's. What was his driving force as he faced many perils along his way?

Sun has a magical way of trying history and legend together with her current narrative. It all blends seamlessly and also paints an amazing portrait of the changing face of Modern China.

I highly recommend it, even if you do have to get it from England. Well worth it.

ALSO! How much do I love the fact that she has an Orphan Works notice on her list of illustrations! WONDERFUL!!!!! (sorry, that's the geek in me)

A Needle in the Right Hand of God: The Norman Conquest of 1066 and the Making and Meaning of the Bayeux Tapestry R. Howard Bloch

While this was interesting, as pop history it was ultimately unsatisfying. Bloch spends a lot of time proving minor points (did I really need half a chapter on the longship find of Sutton Hoo?) and leaves some other points hanging.

His premise is that the Bayeux Tapestry was stitched as a way to bring about a new multi-cultural peace and ultimately... I didn't buy it. There are many obvious other explanations to his supporting points that he doesn't address.

For instance, the fact that the tapestry is vague about some of the stickier points of the story (what the contents of the oath Harold swore, who Edward appointed as successor) isn't necessarily "sufficiently undefined as to permis all to identify with their particular point of view" ON PURPOSE. Maybe (a) it was common knowledge-- it's not like there are paragraphs of text here, most of the narration is based on common knowledge (b) Maybe they didn't know. This information doesn't appear in any other source, either. Maybe it was a secret.

But Bloch doesn't address these possible explanations for any of his evidence.

I do like his in-depth art-analysis of the symbolism and origins of various aspects of the tapestry, especially as he does refer to specific panels that are illustrated in the full color insert pages, as well as several other full-color and black-and-white illustrations throughout the text.

And as a minor note, I really didn't like the font. The lower case p has this little bit that extends out and is just visually very distracting.

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One of Australian illustrator Sally Rippin’s recent children’s books (published in 2005 in Australia, 2007 in the U.S.) opens upwards rather than outwards. I asked Sally how she and author Whitney Stewart decided on the format for Becoming Buddha. Here’s her reply:

“Whitney suggested working together on a picture book, and I approached my publisher at the time with her ideas. They agreed to publish our book, and it was then left up to me to illustrate Whitney’s text. I decided to have Becoming Buddha open so the illustration reads vertically on the double page to represent an ancient manuscript, or a thangka. From what I know about Buddhism, I believe opening the book in this way makes you more conscious of your actions. Fortunately, the publisher agreed to this format.

“Painting the face of Siddhartha was quite challenging, because I knew there were certain rules about how the Buddha could be represented in art, and I also wanted to make the paintings my own representations of Siddhartha, the man, before he became enlightened. Again fortunately, Whitney was able to have a representative of the Dalai Lama approve the artwork before it went to press, so that gave me confidence.”

Melbourne poet and blogger Kris Helmsley had some interesting observations about the layout and Buddhism when he introduced Sally and Becoming Buddha at a book launch in June 2007; read his comments here.

Another vertically read book with an equally conscious layout is Caldecott Medal winner Ed Young’s Beyond the Great Mountains. Its cascading-style pages, illustrating Chinese characters and landscapes, also create a special physical awareness for young readers.

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Wild Mind, Living the Writer’s Life
Natalie Goldberg, Bantam


"Natalie Goldberg, author of the bestselling Writing Down The Bones, teaches a method of writing that can take you beyond craft to the true source of creative power: The mind that is "raw, full of energy, alive and hungry." ~~ from the publisher

Here is compassionate, practical, and often humorous advice about how to find time to write, how to discover your personal style, how to make sentences come alive, and how to overcome procrastination and writer's block -- including more than thirty provocative "Try this" exercises to get your pen moving.

And here also is a larger vision of the writer's task: balancing daily responsibilities with a commitment to writing; knowing when to take risks as a writer and a human being; coming to terms with success and failure and loss; and learning self-acceptance -- both in life and art.

Wild Mind will change your way of writing. It may also change your life.

Goldberg is an advocate of timed writing exercises. She compares it to Zen practice and believes that the practice of writing can free your mind of clutter by getting past the stuck points of our thinking. The best way to get past these stuck points is to just write until the predetermined time is up, in this case I’ve set a timer for ten minutes and am now writing my annotation by using her exercise.

The effect that it's had on me is exhilarating. I write as fast as I can and try not to wait for the next word. I just write, and then the words string themselves along. The key is to keep doing it, eventually the thoughts come together, but at first, don't expect to write anything too deep. The truly deep stuff comes with years of practice, just like in Zen meditation. (Damn!)

Beginning Zen students don’t find enlightenment just because they sit for a few minutes and then are hit on the head with it. It takes a whole lifetime of trying to be present with every single breath, accepting that everything is impermanent. We all die, the seasons, the birds, the clouds, the earth; all pass from this existence into the next without anxiety. The stream flows past without ever containing the same water and doesn’t stop to worry that it will never be as full as it was yesterday. Doubts move quickly and only linger and double in size if we let them. Goldberg’s book has many inspiring stories to tell about committing oneself to the writer’s life. She talks about "failure" as part of the process of living, with the only true failure happening when we stop ourselves from reaching for the life that we long for.

Writing is many times a solitary practice that leaves little room for the comforts of regular support. Consistent comfort comes from the continual practice of writing and moving pass the stuck points and getting to it.

I know I could not have developed the work of the last few years without a willingness to let go and let it fly. What I continually remember and forget and remember and forget, is that those feelings of isolation or loneliness, as intense as they may seem, are impermanent. It's something inescapable in the creative life, and are part of just being human. Remembering that frees me to tap into deeper knowledge, and when I'm lucky, it's that knowledge that emerges in the best work. I try to stay conscious, holding onto that thread, that hint of what's really real that gets drowned out by the buzz and blur of living.

Having said that, I’d like to spend the rest of this review enjoying the simple bright beauty of these exercises. One of my favorites asks that I sit and simply describe the place that I’m sitting in-- so I’ll do just that to give you a flavor of how this works. This resulted from a fifteen minute attempt...

It's a second floor apartment with hardwood floors and walls that slant as they reach the ceiling to accommodate the roof of the house. The plaster job on the walls is splotchy, a lot of patch up jobs perhaps from past leaks in the roof. There are four small rooms; a tiny bathroom that just fits an old bathtub, the kind with the claw feet and sides that curl up to form a lip. The shower curtain hangs from pipe rods fastened to the ceiling and the shower head rises from the water fixture like an afterthought.

The bathroom is tiny. When the door is closed, my knees just fit if I lean them to the left and avoid the paper roll. At the back door (which is the entrance way because the front door leads down steps that take you to and old porch that doesn’t have any steps to access them) there is the dining table with three of the four chairs around it because the kitchen is too small to sit comfortably in a foursome.

Next to the table is a small wooden door, about three tall, that closes off a crawl space for storing things. As of now, it is storing the boxes from the computer accessories. The actual computer box wouldn't fit passed the door because a sheet of pink insulation has been stapled to the inside of the little door making the entryway smaller. The computer box sits outside of the front door at the head of the stairs that leads to the old porch. Next to the three foot door are a set of shelves that I purchased from Target.

On the one with four shelves, there are coffee mugs, three sets of four: one large round blue set, one regular size cream color with a blue stripe around the lips and matching plates, plus a complete set of dinner plates, salad plates and bowls. The three shelf unit has a set of four wine glasses and a silverware tray on the top shelf and cookbooks on the bottom two shelves. There is a cream and sugar set made of ceramic pottery sitting on top of the books on the second shelf--they were a gift from friends who live in Madison, WI.

The kitchen sink sits along side the smaller shelf unit and metal cabinets perch over the sink. In front of the sink is a counter with a coffee maker and toaster and papier mache calaveras of La Catrina y El Catrín. Several of the figures are brides and grooms, skeletal, in wedding cake poses, in coffins. I tell each new visitor that they’re a wedding album.

And so it goes...if you haven't tried free writing, I strongly recommend this book.

# ISBN-10: 0712602917
# ISBN-13: 978-0712602914

Lisa Alvarado

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