Quest Magazine

The Faraway Nearby

Rebecca Solnit 
New York: Viking, 2013. 259 pages, hardcover, $25.95.

Reading sometimes offers a chance to tag along on an author's dark journey of the soul. As you proceed on a descent into the underworld, a straightforward and leisurely path all at once turns serpentine, then braids off into obscurity. You arrive in the midst of a shadowy wood and dismal night, no destination discernible. Panthers and wolves lurk in the gloom. You consider retracing your steps, starting over, but even this course leads to an impasse of doubt. Finally, you arrive at a sea of despair. Yet perseverance furthers. In the case of Rebecca Solnit's The Faraway Nearby, the reader is led into a literary labyrinth, only to discover "that in order to get to your destination you must turn away from it."

Solnit, an accomplished essayist in the tradition of Michel de Montaigne, describes this, her fourteenth book, as a "history of an emergency and the stories that kept me company." She is drawn to reading fairy tales for the "impossible tasks" the heroes must perform. "Enchantment in these stories is the state of being disguised, displaced in an animal's body or another's identity. Disenchantment is the blessing of becoming yourself." Over the course of the book, Solnit's attention roams where it will,through the spacious fields of history, religion, politics, and literature,establishing a compelling tension between these borrowed truths and the direct truth of her own experience as a writer, a daughter, a medical patient, and a traveler in the wider world. Her license is the authority of her prose.

The Faraway Nearby opens with the arrival of a hundred pounds of apricots on the narrator's doorstep, three big boxes of them delivered from a tree in her mother's yard. The mother at this point has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Her children, particularly the daughter-writer, are suffering the all-too-familiar trials of caregiving for an elderly parent, including finding her a new and secure home even as they prepare to sell the old one. "I thought of my mother as a book coming apart," Solnit writes, "pages drifting away, phrases blurring, letters falling off, the page returning to pure white, a book disappearing from the back because the newest memories faded first, and nothing was being added." As if the stress and strain of attending to a failing parent were not enough, Solnit herself receives a cancer diagnosis and he points out the many ways people undermine intimacy and often get tangled up in self-defeating, dysfunctional relationships. The only problem in this argument is that Buddhists are more interested in dissolving or altogether eliminating ego than making it more functional! While Amodeo's sentiment is appealing, he doesn't sufficiently take into account the differences between Eastern meditation and Western psychology. The latter aims to heal or at least improve relations (attachments) between people, while the former seeks to transcend desire through nonattachment. Psychological intimacy brings us closer to satisfying our ego desires,a better marriage, security, forgiveness. Buddhists, on the other hand, have their sights set on transcending life. I agree that meditators should not alienate themselves or avoid others using meditation, but augmenting a Buddhist practice with psychological techniques that emphasize somatic and emotional experience confuses spiritual and psychological paradigms by putting at odds their respective goals. Buddhists use meditation as a means of dissolving the subject-object relationship to experience samadhi, a state of pure awareness. Using this spiritual method, they seek to be liberated from this world of suffering. is suddenly propelled into what she laconically calls "my medical adventure." The collapse of physical health long taken for granted lands her in "the country of the ill."

The turning point in The Faraway Nearby comes with an unexpected invitation to visit Iceland. Yet the narrative takes considerable time in arriving there. Along the way, Solnit leads the reader across a wide range of subjects, including meditations on the nature of storytelling, the virtues of Buddhism, and the calamities now facing polar bears, just to name a few. Those readers who prefer that memoir take a less errant course in achieving its purposes may find these excursions distracting or even irrelevant. I for one did not, and as the author herself points out more than once, when it comes to the task of assaying one's experience, "the route is seldom direct."

Indeed, a kind of subterranean chapter runs across the bottom of the book's pages, requiring the reader at the end to go back to the first page and follow this new thread across each of the book's 259 pages. In both form and function, the essay that unfurls here serves as a poetic reprise of the book's main themes.

As Solnit makes amply clear right from the start, "stories are compasses." Our lives are guided by them, for good or for ill. Not only are happy endings unlikely, there may not be any endings at all, at least none that are clearcut. "Essayists too," she reflects in the book's closing pages, "face the temptation of a neat ending, that point when you bring the boat to shore and tie it to the dock and give up the wide sea." Again, some readers might find such open-endedness discomfiting. Others, and I include myself among this lot,take refuge in having a chance to try it all again, to bring the boat about toward open waters, and see what might be in the offing.

John P. O'Grady

John P. O'Grady is the author of Grave Goods: Essays of a Peculiar Nature and Pilgrims to the Wild (both published by University of Utah Press). He lives in the Catskill Mountains of New York. 

Supernatural: Writings on an Unknown History

Richard Smoley
New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2013. 230 pp., paper, $12.95.

In the opening chapter of Supernatural, a collection of essays written by Quest editor Richard Smoley over the fifteen years between 1997 and 2012, he recalls a sensation he experienced as a child when listening to his parents and party guests occasionally discuss topics related to the paranormal, such as "Atlantis, UFOs, Edgar Cayce, and other matters that were of great interest to my father"

That sensation was a vast expansion of his sense of scale, in which he was no longer in a living room but rather "surrounded by a vast and limitless space that was both awe-inspiring and somewhat terrifying".

Smoley's late father would no doubt be proud of the erudition and critical acumen his son brings to writing on the "unknown history" of Western esoteric spiritual teachings.

In sixteen pithy chapters, written in a popular, accessible style, Smoley's Supernatural succeeds in not only creating but vitally informing the reader's own sense of "limitless space" that inevitably accompanies the act of questioning received doctrines and ideologies.

In this book, he touches principally on topics concerning the efficacy of prophecy and changes in the ages (e.g., Nostradamus, the Kali Yuga, 2012), the influence of esoteric traditions on civilization (the myth of Atlantis, the significance of Freemasonry, the influence of "hidden masters"), and the relationship between consciousness and its creations, including questions regarding the reality of demons and the effects of what best-selling author Larry Dossey called "toxic prayer"

Smoley likes to lay out what is known or can be known about his topics, put that knowledge in historical, personal, and cultural perspective, separate the grain from the chaff in a process of critical deconstruction of claims and attributions, and then see what remains that may be of value, what lessons we may learn, what morals may be drawn.

In general, Smoley does an excellent job of sketching the outline of his topic or profiling the personalities he describes.

His essay "Masonic Civilization," for example, is probably one of the best short overviews of the origins and development of the Masonic tradition anyone has written in recent years, both linking it to the development of liberal democracies and describing it as a system of spiritual development.

Likewise, his profile of the French Traditionalist René Guénon and his critique of the "reign of quantity" in modern civilization is a wonderful introduction to a philosopher who refused to accept that one's value equates to one's economic worth, and is a highly appropriate contribution in the wake of the economic apocalypse the U.S. and the world experienced in 2008.

There are times, though, when Smoley seems to miss a larger world of discourse that is relevant to his topic, and neglects to mention its implications and significance.

In "Secrets of The Da Vinci Code," for example, Smoley eloquently skewers some of author Dan Brown's assertions to the effect that the Bible was collated by the "pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great" and that Mary Magdalene was descended from the "House of Benjamin".

He also reminds readers who did not see the news years ago in the now-defunct magazine Gnosis (which Smoley edited) that the contemporary "Priory of Sion," which features prominently in Brown's novel, was a post–“World War II French right-wing political organization cloaking itself in the longstanding myths concerning a marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene and persons who claimed to be their descendants.

Smoley's culminating discussion of the significance of the theme of Mary Magdalene as a harbinger of a resurgent Divine Feminine ends on the bittersweet note that an appreciation of the Divine Feminine may in time "bear fruit in an age of healing, beauty, and wisdom" despite all evidence to the contrary.

It was remarkable, though, that Smoley did not describe or reflect the extraordinarily rich diversity of discussion the Magdalene has inspired in recent years among feminist theologians who aim to use her to reform Christianity itself, and other writers (notably Riane Eisler) who point to the popularity of the idea of a marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene as a harbinger of a new model of partnership in sexual relationships, rather than the dominance of one gender over another.

Surely those examples of the esoteric moving into the mainstream deserved more attention and reflection.

Throughout Supernatural, Smoley applies generous doses of common sense to topics and teachings that have long been made confusing by unprofessional popular writers, or distorted by cult leaders for personal gain. Given that we are now on the very uncertain "other side" of 2012, such an approach to the esoteric tradition is a welcome guide to navigating the deep and rising waters in which we all find ourselves on this beautiful blue planet.

Ed Conroy

Ed Conroy is the author ofReport on "Communion" (Morrow, 1989; Avon, 1990), an investigation of the UFO -related narrative Communion: A True Story by Whitley Strieber. He serves as director of development for the Southwest School of Art in San Antonio, Texas.

Dancing with Fire: A Mindful Way to Loving Relationships

John Amodeo
Wheaton: Quest, 2013. 290 + xix pages, paper, $16.95.

John Amodeo's book is a life-affirming work that expands traditional Buddhist practice to the social dimension. Filled with dozens of examples, personal anecdotes, and pithy quotes, Dancing with Fire is dedicated to expanding conscious awareness and mindfulness to increase personal, interpersonal, and cultural intimacy. This well-seasoned therapist draws from Buddha's Eight Noble Truths to show how psychology can help those on the spiritual path.

Much of the book's theme could be captured in a quote from Rumi: "Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. Amodeo suggests using meditation and mindfulness as tools to remove these blocks to intimacy. In meditation retreats, he observed practitioners confusing the Buddhist notion of nonattachment (vairagya) with emotional detachment. Instead of forming more intimate relations, they tended to isolate themselves and withdraw from people while thinking this was the way to liberation. He believes that desire shouldn't be denied or avoided, but rather fully experienced with joy and equanimity. It isn't enough, he suggests, to simply "note feelings and sensations and release them. Rather he advises people to "let in emotions and allow "our inner processes to arise, incubate, unfold, and shift [so that] a new understanding or forward movement may emerge.

Amodeo turns to John Bowlby's attachment theory, Emotionally Focused Therapy, and Eugene Gendlin's technique of Focusing to help avoid these pitfalls and expand the feeling dimension of meditative practice. He believes that greater intimacy occurs when we bring emotions to the surface of awareness, thus checking the mistaken idea that meditation should lead us out of this world into some kind of detached state of nirvana. He repeatedly stresses that meditative practice should improve the intimate quality of loving relations rather than isolating us from one another. Psychological methods can augment meditation by helping transform social relationship into sacred experience.

Becoming more aware of feelings and sensations, says Amodeo, makes for a "juicy life. The clarity and solid sense of ego helped by meditation enables us to keep a firm grip on ourselves and interact with people while maintaining a healthy degree of equanimity. As an experienced therapist, he points out the many ways people undermine intimacy and often get tangled  up in self-defeating, dysfunctional relationships. The only problem in this argument is that Buddhists are more interested in dissolving or altogether eliminating ego than making it more functional!

While Amodeo's sentiment is appealing, he doesn't sufficiently take into account the differences between Eastern meditation and Western psychology. The latter aims to heal or at least improve relations (attachments) between people, while the former seeks to transcend desire through nonattachment. Psychological intimacy brings us closer to satisfying our ego desires—a better marriage, security, forgiveness. Buddhists, on the other hand, have their sights set on transcending life. I agree that meditators should not alienate themselves or avoid others using meditation, but augmenting a Buddhist practice with psychological techniques that emphasize somatic and emotional experience confuses spiritual and psychological paradigms by putting at odds their respective goals.

Buddhists use meditation as a means of dissolving the subject-object relationship to experience samadhi, a state of pure awareness. Using this spiritual method, they seek to be liberated from this world of suffering. By contrast, psychology teaches ways of dealing with suffering in this life by engaging the object. Without addressing these differences, it is difficult to reconcile the desire for intimacy with the nonattachment of Buddhist philosophy.

With chapters composed of many subheadings no longer than a few paragraphs, the book makes for an interesting, fast-paced read. But this format doesn't leave room for deeper exploration; a number of critical subjects, like the one above, could have used more elaboration. Ironically, the reader isn't able to delve deeper and become more intimate with the subject.

Nevertheless, in the West, where intimacy is often perverted into clinging and craving behaviors, a practical combination of spirituality and psychology is sorely needed. To this end, Dancing with Fire is more than a self help book. It seeks to adapt contemplative practice to the proclivities of the Western mind by teaching us how to "be in this world, but not of it.

Thom F. Cavalli

Thom F. Cavalli, Ph.D., is a practicing psychologist and author of Embodying Osiris: The Secrets of Alchemical Transformation (Quest) and Alchemical Psychology: Old Recipes for Living in a New World (Putnam).

The Hidden Geometry of Flowers: Living Rhythms, Form, and Number

Keith Crichlow
Edinburgh: Floris, 2011. 446 pp., paper, $50.

Keith Critchlow is one of the world's foremost experts on sacred geometry. His name has been familiar to me since the early '70s, when my former husband discovered his book Order in Space, propelling him into an enduring fascination with the mystical side of geometry. I, however, am geometryshy, despite having a maths teacher as a father, who despaired at my lack of ability. But in the spiritual traditions I was drawn to, particularly the Kabbalistic Tree of Life and astrology, I discovered that you can't go far with without confronting your inner geometrical demons. The structures involved and their significance demand at least a basic engagement with the concepts of spheres, solids, and divisions of space. Moreover, using the part of the brain that deals with pure geometrical shapes can propel one into a state of lucidity. To get there, one has to move beyond both the normal "thinking mind" and the film screen of imagination.

So the title of this book instantly intrigued me. For Critchlow, "what is evident in the geometry of the face of a flower can remind us of the geometry that underlies all existence. Studying the geometry of flowers is therefore a powerful way to reconnect us with the idea that we are all one"

At over 400 pages, this is a long work, but it is full of superb illustrations, providing instant appeal. Most are in color, but a wonderful exception is a sequence of grainy black-and-white photos, showing how a moon daisy progresses from bud to fully formed flower. Critchlow ties it into his theme by encouraging us to see the emerging geometrical forms in the flower: spiral, cone, and hemisphere.

Although the volume is lavishly illustrated, it is also a book of substance as far as the writing is concerned. The author gives us a veritable compendium of flower studies, including fruit and leaves, structuring it around the philosophical and geometrical concepts he wishes to convey. Flowers, he says, can be understood at four different levels: the material, the social and psychological, the cultural and mythological, and at the highest level, the inspirational. This theme is developed through the book, along with the geometrical idea of a flower expanding during growth from point to line, to plane, and to solid. Critchlow manages to convey the implicit geometry of natural forms as ideas that we can grasp without special knowledge or training, and which may continue to influence us as we observe and experience the world of nature.

This is an achievement of the highest order. The book is an important  resource, and will remain on my bookshelf as something to read and dip into over the years to come. My only concern is that Critchlow throws in so many citations from philosophy and mythology to explain the basis for his explorations. In the mix are Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Vedas, chakras, Buddhism, Christian symbolism, Goethe's theories, and Anthroposophical and Kabbalistic schemas. It is a kind of glorious compost heap for growing the flowers, but it's the plants themselves that are most important here! I think that the reader will either know the basis of the perennial philosophy and have his or her own references to underpin the text, or, if new to these ideas, will struggle to digest them. However, I also consider this to be a book which will "grow" on the reade, to extend the flower analogy, and it is full of memorable quotes, which the mathematically challenged reader (like me), or the newcomer to the perennial philosophy, can hold on to while waiting for full understanding to emerge. Try this one, for instance: "Life takes time to possess space in spiral form"

Critchlow cuts to the chase in part three, "The Geometry of Flowers," explaining the principles of geometry as they relate to flowers and to life itself. He highlights the fundamental importance of symmetry, the principle of right- and left-handedness, both in terms of balance in the human body and of the growth of flowers, which frequently develop into a fivefold arrangement, echoing the Golden Proportion. The range of five-based flowers is vast, from the humble herb Robert or Robert's geranium (Critchlow's personal favorite) to fruit blossoms, poppies, and of course the rose. He systematically goes through all the different arrangements of flower geometry, from the rare single flower, such as the arum lily, to the prolific twenty-oneness of the daisy. Clues to their significance are given, for instance, that four is "the number of worldly order" and six embodies the idea of "perfection," but quite rightly, I think, readers are encouraged to come at interpretation by studying the forms and flowers themselves. For those who delight in the analysis of the mathematical constructs, there is plenty more material included in his explanations to chew over in the following section, "The Flowers of Geometry"

Above all, Critchlow encourages us to marvel at flowers: "These delicate, mysterious, vulnerable, beautiful life forms (even the most modest of then) can be used as a metaphor for our overall need to satiate our wonderment" This is the joy of the experience he invites us to cultivate, and which he conveys so well in this remarkable book.

Cherry Gilchrist