To Read & To Write

Crystal Intentions: Practices For Manifesting Wellness (2019) is an excellent resource for those who work with crystals for their healing potential. Lune Innate and Araminta Star Matthews cover a lot of ideas and concepts surrounding the practice of using crystals as an aid for wellness; ancient spiritual beliefs (such as the Law of Attraction) are discussed, as are the body's seven major chakras, the use of simple ritual (for ex. Pranayama breathing), and elemental philosophies (i.e. the five elements of Chinese medicine). Crystal Intentions covers a lot of ground - the subjects mentioned above are just a sample. For this reason I recommend the book as a reference guide as well as a beginner's introductory text to crystals. As the title suggests, there is a special focus placed on the practice of infusing crystals with a specific intention by dedicating a specific crystal for a particular purpose. Throughout history, as Lune Innate and Araminta Star Matthews share, cryst...

"I have touched on this already in the book; however, let me say it again: self-development, self-care and kindness is the number one most important job we have throughout our lives. However or whomever you are inside manifests itself in absolutely every aspect of your life, from how you think and how you behave to how you contribute to the world. I have heard it said so many times that living in service to others is the most fulfilling life there is and I wholeheartedly agree with this. But the only way to do that effectively and long term is to first nurture yourself to be the best you can." (p. 147) Emma WhispersRed provides us with an art, or if you prefer, an artistic tool, for self-care and self-help. Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, now commonly known as ASMR, is a relatively new phenomenon in dominant culture; people who have experienced the ASMR sensation in their childhoods or even before this generation didn't have a name and description for a tingly ...

There is a possibility that  Daughter from the Dark  by Marina & Sergey Dyachenko (2020) lost some of its stylistic panach because of its translation into English from Russian. If so, it's a big loss for the novel because its structure is so well conceived as a warpy fairy-tale and contemporary fantasy about a young girl-child from another world and the male stranger who, upon once saving her life, acts  in loco parentis.  The child herself, Alyona, cannot fully explain who she is, where she is from, and why she has no where else to go. Grimalsky, a.k.a. DJ Aspirin, her caretaker (though he treats her with less care than he probably should), teeters between awe, respect, and selfless love on one hand, and on the other, hatred, absolute annoyance, and obligation: not a good sign when the person who is supposed to be your father has no idea how to act except passive-aggressively. This mix of the two brings up a very strange Beauty and the Beast tale, where two...

Natalie Babbitt’s classic story, “Tuck Everlasting”, published in 1975, is a magical, powerful novella about a ten-year old girl named Winnie. She longs for something that is much more than her own bourgeois family, her own boring front yard, and her own lonesome self (whose only real friend at the beginning of the story is a frog). The day she decides to run away grants all her wishes. She spends a couple days living with an odd, mysterious, and gentle family – the Tucks - who tell her a big, unbelievable secret – a secret so important that it depends on their lives… Besides a fantastic, perfectly-crafted plot, Babbitt’s “Tuck Everlasting” has some of the most beautiful literary prose ever written. The dead heat of August, the stifling feeling of loneliness, the exuberance of love, the passing of time and its effect on the atmosphere, and, quite unique to this book – the idea of a lost rural place with lots and lots forest and sudden otherworldly and unexpected clearings, clearings ...

Katherine Paterson's retelling of the classic Japanese folktale, "The Tale of the Mandarin Ducks" (1990), is perfectly encapsulated in the form of a children's picture book, with richly toned traditional illustrations (olive greens, sunflower yellows...) by Leo & Diane Dillon. In it, a masterful story of a stolen drake unfolds. Deep in nature, a beautiful, colorful drake lives with his wife. But when he is taken from his home to the lord's manor (to be on display within a cage), the drake grows weary and utterly depressed, unable to sustain himself, only thinking of his worried wife. Luckily, a sympathetic and wise person intervenes, and from there, the story blossoms into one of magic, divine oversight, and karmic fruition, all stemming from a continuous surging of two people's kindness towards the rest of the world. You'll find out how a little touch of compassion, shared by humans and animals alike, is enough to outweigh those terribly hurtful i...

"A woman in one village had the Sight and predicted doom. There were always such stories somewhere; natural philosophy was still the province of the rich and educated. The poor would have their gods of tree and stream and hollow, their hedgerow cures and charms. But those things were not usually tossed about in tavern gossip. For them to come out now meant fear of something else that was too hard to face. He had seen the hex signs, the wardings, on the farmhouse doors and the roofs of barns. On the sides of the roads were little primitive pyramids of stone for guarding and shrines with offerings of food. People expected evil. It made no sense, not even accounting for the uneasiness the dragons cast... it was the newness of it, he decided, made from raw fear and not unthinking custom." (p. 8, 10) Anne Leonard's Moth and Spark  (2014) tells a saga of old magic's renewal in desperate times of unknowing and obscured discernment within the kingdom of Caithen, a co...

"He knew what evil lay upon this land. It was in the sun-symbols on the nurse's apron, in that stupid woman's terror, in the fey, feral eyes of Pyotr's elder daughter. The place was infested with demons: the chyerti of the old religion. These foolish, wild people worshipped God by day and the old gods in secret; they tried to walk both paths at once and made themselves base in the sight of the Father. No wonder evil had to come to work its mischief." (p. 113) This passage, found one third a way into Katherine Arden's  The Bear and the Nightingale  (2017), tells of Konstantin, a monk from Moscow, visiting a small village on the outskirts of the kingdom. Konstantin believes he has a mission, a "duty", to save the village people from pagan beliefs and folkloric tradition, but, as the story goes, the collision of God and duty alongside enchantment and magic just make the sum of all parts a more potent whole. Though this story is set in Russia at...