Book List 2014

Iron John: A Book About Men:
Eventually a man must throw off indoctrination and discover for himself what masculinity is, rediscover his gold.  In a man’s chest there is a low string that makes his body tremble when the qualities of the masculine are spoken of in the right way

 

Hatchet:
First food, then thought, then action

 

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A Branch from the Lightning Tree:
If you are satisfied with all things, and all seems steady and well appointed, and you remain untroubled by the world’s trajectory, then there is no need for soul work.
But if you desire a life full of breathtaking and inexplicable meaning, you must dwell at the crossroads of the Village and the Forest, and know both

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Jonathan Livingston Seagull:
Trust yourself: you were born to fly, not just grub around for food with the flock

 

 

The Hidden Spirituality of Men:
If men are not aware of their masculine spirituality, we have no counterpart to offer the feminine.  Patriarchy and machismo are spiritually bankrupt overcompensations for this loss, attitudes passed down through generations.  Without masculine spirituality, men fear losing power and control, so we fear the feminine and refuse its rights and wisdom

The Legend of Cuchulain:
Falling in love with FOUR mighty warrior princesses means you’ll end up getting your ass whooped, no matter how unbelievably mighty you are

 

One Minute Meditation:
Life doesn’t grow on the solid paving stones, but in the cracks between.  Failure is always tough, but it’s our rate of recovery that determines our health.
Intentions count vastly more than appearances to others

 

Free to Be Human:
It is only when we realise that our own personal suffering is rooted not only in our individual lives, but in a collective missing of the mark that is wreaking havoc across the world, that we can identify the source of our personal pain.  But instead we usually consume things to remove it

 

The Old Ways:
The body knows things in ways the conscious mind cannot, and is not distinct from the environment it walks through

 

The Hero with A Thousand Faces:
We do not have to risk the adventure alone: the heroes of all time have gone before us, and we only need to follow the thread of the hero path.  And where we thought to find an abomination, we will find a god

 

Using the Ugly Duckling to Find the Missing Link Between Boys and Men:
A lot of us are afraid of change, and build immobile structures to insulate ourselves and our families to keep out the cold North wind.  But the North wind will inevitably come

 

Nature, Man and Woman:
To the mind which pursues every road to its end, every road leads nowhere.  You arrive by staying rather than going; to be forever looking beyond is to remain blind to what is here

 

Kith: The Riddle of the Childscape:
The more a child’s will is respected, the better the child will be at respecting the will of others.
And Lord of the Flies is a nasty piece of authoritarian adult propaganda

 

Placebos:
The more language and ritual we build around meaningful activities, the more powerful its beneficial impact, because 50% of any medicine’s effectiveness is what we anticipate or believe it will do

 

The little book on authenticity:
My authenticity isn’t something I find or reveal, it’s something I choose and wholeheartedly practice, woven into the fabric of my life, if I find the courage to free myself from what everyone else is doing

 

Weapons of Mass Instruction:
Schools are designed to detain and condition children into logical, obedient people; spontaneous, autonomous human beings are absolutely not wanted by schools, corporations and governments because they don’t tend to work or vote for them, and can’t be mass-managed for mass-production and mass-consumption

Do Improvise:
Instantly evaluating what is happening through the lens of the past, either while it’s going on or before it even happens, gives you no chance of adapting creatively

 

The courage to be me:
My severed arm will not grow back if I ignore it

 

 

Never Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head & Other Drawings:
NEVER eat anything bigger than your head

 

 

The Artist’s Way:
Your own healing is the greatest message of hope for others

 

 

The Maiden King: The Reunion of Masculine and Feminine:
The masculine and feminine are called that way not because they relate to men and women, but because when joined in a person they make them whole, like night needs day, or summer needs winter

 

Become What You are:
No matter which direction I go, or which opposite I am engaged in, I am always in harmony with the One, which includes all directions and opposites.  “Serving God” is therefore just living, not about how you live, as all ways are included in ”God”

 

Busy: How to thrive in a world of too much:
Money can’t buy happiness.  We all know this.  But we carry on regardless as our whole society, motivational systems, and even the explanations we give to ourselves, are all based on such external values, and never internal ones

 

The Forgotten Language:
We lose sight of the many-sightedness of symbolic language and to try and force it into only one kind of meaning, and then take that literally

 

F**k It: The Ultimate Spiritual Way:
Put on your own oxygen mask before helping others – don’t diss selfishness.
Give up the search for meaning, and try and see the beauty in ordinary things.

 

They F*** You Up:
Nature or nurture?  We like to blame things on our genes – a scientific theory that even geneticists don’t really understand – as it diverts responsibility away from our own actions

 

What the Robin Knows:
Modern connection involves hecticness.  Nature connection involves a quiet mind, a sacred silence, which reacquaints us with our humanness and our true place and belonging in the world

 

The Seeing Stone:
Each of us needs a quest, and a person without one is lost to himself

 

 

The Joyous Cosmology: Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness:
Right… I have never been so convinced to try LSD.  I’m off to Boots

 

 

Snowy Tower:
It’s the loss of the Grail that sets us out on the Quest, not the finding.
It might be too late for any heroic quest to succeed.  Delving into your soul and reconnecting with the earth might in fact be an act of saying farewell to the earth, before it must part ways with our civilisation

Listening to Nature:
If we could find the humility to forget ourselves, we can enter the spirit of nature, our cares will drop away, and a reverence will arise.  Without this loving reverence, man can only exploit nature (until the system collapses)

 

Ten Billion:
The expert’s conclusion: “I think we’re fucked”

 

 

Prosperity without Growth:
Beyond food and shelter, prosperity lies in our ability to participate in life in society, in shared meaning and purpose.  We’ve directed our institutions and culture towards pursuing these goals through material means and status competition.  This constraint is the first thing we need to free ourselves from

Earth in Mind:
The planet doesn’t need successful people, but it does need more lovers of every kind, who can live well, and have moral courage.  Beyond some scale and complexity, the possibility for love of any sort declines.  We need the forebearance to say no to things that diminish that which is loved, or our capacity to work artfully

The Art of War:
No plan survives its first contact with the enemy

 

 

Protest, Inc:
The problem with our corporate, consumerist, capitalist system is that it exists.  Only by accepting this can we move away from it, towards a less destructive, less doomed way of living.  But it is difficult to accept, and not in the interest of corporates and states.  Corporatisation entails consumers feeling they are saving the world through what they consume and with minimal lifestyle change, and as a way for activists to have some influence, although only regarding symptoms and not the ultimate cause

The Practice of the Wild:
The integrity and character of our ancestors is dismissed with an “I couldn’t live like that” by people who don’t know how to live at all

 

 

Thinking Like a Mountain:
We are all connected.  The Golden Rule: what you do to others, you do to yourself