The Metaphysical Studies Shelf
Being Medicine
Juliet Trnka
Muse Literary
https://museliterary.com
9781960876317, $25.99 Hardcover/$15.99 Paper/$0.99 ebook
https://www.amazon.com/Being-Medicine-Shamanic-Mystical-Manifestation/dp/1960876317
Being Medicine: A Shamanic Guide to Mystical Wealth + Manifestation is recommended for libraries and readers seeking books about spiritual and entrepreneurial leadership processes; especially those collections strong in consciousness and applications. Juliet Trnka discusses a range of subjects that are important to this process, from considering a life lived in surrender to eschewing compulsory action and reaction in favor of deeper, more meaningful excitement: "To live in surrender is to live a life of true audacity, because most of humanity is still living out the stale routines and habits of lack. Living in the frequency of surrender allows you to become truly generous, because you are tapped into the limitlessness of the Divine. The foundation of your life is no longer one of loneliness, struggle and anxiety. You are enfolded in the riches of this moment."
Although it embraces philosophy, psychology, and spirituality, Being Medicine is not a book for those unwilling to also embark on the transformative journey of self-actualization. It accompanies its admonitions in the above areas with practical applications that readers on a path to change will find specific and useful: "By strengthening your skill and intimacy with receiving, you awaken and catalyze your inborn capacity to make ceremony anew, to curate proper refuge. You contribute to the full metabolization of your life."
Poems pepper the passages on dreams, life-embracing possibilities, and daily insights on manifesting a life more loved and vivid than the usual step-by-step progression of followers who do not reflect: "Gradually you will allow yourself the grief of recognition that others will not choose to live this way. You will remember that you can love them anyway. You will remember that you can love you anyway. You will move like thunder across the land of your life, and you will also become the thirsty soil sated by the rains the storm brings."
The resulting reflections offer opportunity for not just debate and discussion among book club, psychology, and health and healing groups, but for those on personal journeys on the path to creating a better life. This is why Being Medicine is highly recommended for those looking to take a more active role and part in living their lives to the fullest -- and why it also should be part of any general library seeing popularity with book group reading and leadership efforts.
I Am Consciousness Incarnate
Matthew Pallamary
https://mattpallamary.com
Mystic Ink Publishing
https://mysticinkpublishing.com
9798988499800, $12.95, PB, 158pp
https://www.amazon.com/Am-Consciousness-Incarnate-Matthew-Pallamary/dp/B0CL9RTKVC
Synopsis: I am consciousness incarnate.
The fact that you just became conscious of me has made you more conscious than you were a moment ago. Your recognition has brought you a heightened awareness of my presence that constitutes an expansion of consciousness. In no more than a few words, this reflection of my existence within you is already bigger than that first moment of acknowledgment.
Now that you are paying attention, the energy you are giving me has caused me to grow both here where I am meeting you in one of my many forms, and inside of you where you embrace these myriad forms with the mirror of your own incarnate consciousness.
If you question what makes up their consciousness, you will come to the conclusion that your thoughts make up your consciousness, which leads to the question, "Who is it that is aware that I am thinking?"
The answer is, "I am aware that I am thinking," but it isn't that simple. If it is ourselves that is aware that we are thinking, that would mean that we are separate from ourselves in order to make that observation.
This is not the case, which leaves only one other option. Our individual consciousness has to be a part of something greater than itself; the proverbial drop of water in an ocean of consciousness, which begs the question, where does the ocean start and the droplet end?
They don't.
I am you, you are me, I am everything, and everything is me, so you are everything, and everything is you by default.
If you are still with me, then I am growing on you, but the truth of it is that I have been here all along.
What is growing is your awareness of me.
The more you ponder me, the more you find yourself struggling to define something that is ubiquitous both inside and outside of anything you have ever known or experienced. Like the infinite amount of drops of water in the ocean, there have been many attempts to define just what I am, but the reason I defy description is because I am definition itself.
Critique: A unique blend of cognitive psychology, New Age spirituality, personal transformation, and self-help guide, "I Am Consciousness Incarnate" by Matthew Pallamary is an inherently fascinating, iconoclastic, and thought-provoking read from start to finish. While also available for personal reading lists in a digital book format (Kindle, $2.99), "I Am Consciousness Incarnate" will prove to be an appreciated and idiosyncratic pick for personal, professional, community, and college/university library Metaphysical Studies lists.
Editorial Note: Matthew J. Pallamary (
https://mattpallamary.com/aboutmatt/author) has had his works translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Norwegian, French, and German. His historical novel of first contact between shamans and Jesuits in 18th century South America, was titled "Land Without Evil". It was also adapted into a full-length stage and sky show, co-written with and directed by Agent Red and performed by Sky Candy, an Austin Texas aerial group. The making of the show was the subject of a PBS series, Arts in Context episode, which garnered an EMMY nomination.
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