Book Review - Beyond Happiness: The 6 Secrets of Lifetime Satisfaction

 Are you happy? Nearly half of adults worldwide—40 percent—would say “no”. Even when we possess it, happiness can be a fleeting emotion. It's natural that we should desire something longer lasting.

In Beyond Happiness: The 6 Secrets of Lifetime Satisfaction, psychologist Dr. Jennifer Guttman guides listeners in living a deeply fulfilling life by aiming for a kind of contentment that is more sustainable than happiness.

Having endured a number of life-altering challenges, Dr. Guttman knows firsthand how transient happiness can be. She spent nine years battling medical professionals to receive care for her son, whose long undiagnosed ailment eventually led to extensive heart surgery. Next, she faced life-threatening health issues of her own and, soon after, her father's death. Unexpectedly, she came out stronger and more content. But how, exactly?

Dr. Guttman analyzed the steps she took to persist in the face of adversity and to remain optimistic despite the obstacles she had to overcome. She subsequently shared these actionable techniques with clients suffering from depression, anxiety, feelings of unlovability, and feelings of existential despair. The tools that had helped her helped them.

In Beyond Happiness, Dr. Guttman empowers listeners to achieve lifetime satisfaction by employing six techniques that can be practiced and even mastered in the comfort of your own home:

Avoiding assumptions

Reducing people-pleasing behaviors

Facing fears

Making decisions

Closing out tasks

Active self-reinforcement

When coalesced, Dr. Guttman's techniques will buttress feelings of inherent lovability, defiant resilience, patience, authenticity, and self-confidence. She provides clear-cut strategies and tangible steps that can be easily incorporated into everyday life.

Engaging and enlightening, Beyond Happiness: The 6 Secrets of Lifetime Satisfaction offers a user-friendly, practical approach not only to surviving life's pitfalls but to thriving with a durable, balanced, sustainable level of contentment.

Source: downpour

Book Review: The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo By Taylor Jenkins Reid

 An aging starlet with seven marriages behind her generously offers the rights to her memoir to an inexperienced writer—at a heartbreaking cost.

Monique Grant is stunned when Hollywood legend Evelyn Hugo grants an exclusive interview to her over more seasoned journalists, but when she’s also chosen to publish Evelyn’s final confessions after her death, she learns that the 79-year-old actress has enough life experience for them both. Growing up poor in Hell’s Kitchen, young Evelyn Herrera trades her virginity for a ride to Hollywood, changes her name, and climbs the rungs of the entertainment-industry ladder one husband at a time until she hits Oscar gold. To write her off as being calculating and fickle would leave out the difficulty of being a woman, especially a woman of color, trying to get by in the late 1950s without a man’s blessing. 

Evelyn plays up her bombshell figure and hides her Cuban roots by dying her hair blonde—the first of many lies she’ll have to tell over the course of her life to prove to the world that she deserves her place in the spotlight. She’s unapologetically ambitious but not without remorse. Which of her seven husbands was her true love? Why did she choose Monique to tell her story? Evelyn recounts her failures and triumphs in chronological order, one husband at a time, with a few breaks for Monique to report back to her editor. 

The celebrity tell-all style is a departure from Reid’s (One True Loves, 2016, etc.) previous books, but Evelyn Hugo is a character who can demand top billing. When asked if it bothers her that “all anyone talks about when they talk about you are the seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo,” she says no: “Because they are just husbands. I am Evelyn Hugo.”

Reid's heroine reveals her darkest secrets as if she were wiping off makeup at the end of the night—a celebration of human frailty that speaks to the Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor in us all.

Source: Kirkus Reviews

In ‘The Midnight Library,’ Books Offer Transport to Different Lives

 Book Review: The Midnight Library

Few fantasies are more enduring than the idea that there might be a second chance at a life already lived, some sort of magical reset in which mistakes can be erased, regrets addressed, choices altered. This deep desire for a different life, or for more lives than just the one, is at the heart of any number of stories — movies like “Groundhog Day,” “Sliding Doors” and “It’s a Wonderful Life”; television shows like “Sliders” and “Quantum Leap”; wonderful novels like Kate Atkinson’s “Life After Life,” Andrew Sean Greer’s “The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells,” Jo Walton’s “My Real Children” and many others. Into this ever-popular genre, Matt Haig’s “The Midnight Library” is a welcome addition.

Haig’s central character is 35-year-old Nora Seed. Nora is a woman with many gifts and few accomplishments. She’s estranged from her only living relative, an older brother, and also distant from her only close friend both emotionally and geographically. She had “always had the sense that she came from a long line of regrets and crushed hopes that seemed to echo in every generation.” In short order, in a life already littered with remorse, she loses both her job and her beloved cat, Voltaire. “As she stared at Voltaire’s still and peaceful expression — that total absence of pain — there was an inescapable feeling brewing in the darkness. Envy.”

In Haig’s book, the mechanism through which transmigration takes place is the Midnight Library of the title. This structure occupies a magical space between life and death. Its facade replicates an ordinary library, shelves with books, but on an infinite scale.

The librarian is very wise, as librarians tend to be. She explains to Nora that every book on the shelves is a doorway into a different life. Only one book is an exception to this, “The Book of Regrets,” a volume so heavy and toxic it’s dangerous for Nora to read more than a few lines.

By the time Nora arrives at the Midnight Library, the reader has already learned what her chief regrets are. Each of these now functions in the plot as a kind of promissory note; we expect to experience the lives in which these particular regrets are addressed and, in this, we are not disappointed. But the repercussions of eliminating each regret often surprise Nora. Choices are not the same as outcomes, the librarian warns her.

The librarian encourages Nora to sample a variety of texts, promising that as soon as Nora feels dissatisfied with a new life, she’ll find herself back in the library, ready to have another go. This may happen after only a few moments or months might pass. All this while, time in the library is at a standstill. An infinite number of other lives beckon.

Nora is initially reluctant — life is just what she didn’t want more of — but the librarian is firm. Why else would you be here? she asks. So Nora opens her first book.

By the end, she’ll have opened a great many more. Haig describes some of Nora’s provisional lives in detail. Others last only as long as a sentence: “In one life she only ate toast.” Suspense comes from the fact that Nora is dropped in midstream, with no preparation. She always remembers her original life — her root life — so she always has that point of comparison. But she knows nothing of the life she’s just entered. Often she must look for herself online, read her social media accounts, in order to know who she is. More than once she finds herself performing before large crowds, speaking on a subject in which she has no background or expected to sing a song some other Nora recorded, but this one has never heard before. More than once, she’s in a sexual relationship with a man she doesn’t know or mother to children she’s never met.

A small cast of characters reappears in many of Nora’s lives. Her brother, her parents, her best friend are almost always present. She sometimes crosses paths with a man she came close to marrying. As she plays through her own myriad possibilities, the impact of her choices on each of these characters is also profound; their lives are as altered by Nora’s decisions as her own. Even peripheral characters from her root life are transformed.

As in the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” Nora appears to be the X factor in all these changes. The supporting cast is also making different choices, but these are largely posited as responses to Nora’s own altered actions. Only Nora’s choices feel determinative.

The issue of the many Noras temporarily displaced from their own root lives is somewhat troubling. Where do they go in the interim? If/when Nora finds the life in which she will stay, what will become of the Nora whose life that actually is? Answers are hinted at, but the issue is not directly addressed. The conundrum at the heart of the book is the implication that our Nora is the real Nora and the other lives all variations on that first life, the root life, rather than equally valuable universes filled with equally valuable people. In the infinity of the multiverse, surely there are other Noras also trying on our Nora’s life from time to time, displacing her as they do so. The universe is full of infinite possibility, but the story here remains tightly focused on the internal life of a single woman and all her might-have-beens.

It can be hard to keep a reader’s energy invested in a depressed and somewhat listless character, but Nora is smart and observant; she remains good company. She’s studied philosophy and has a particular affection for the American Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau. The book is all the richer, as any book would be, for the inclusion of several of his quotes: “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams” and “I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”

There is likewise a danger that such a recursive plotline will tire the reader. But here, too, the book succeeds. At just the right moment, not too soon and not too late, Nora makes her final decisive move, taking us into the last section of the book. The ending is satisfying but not surprising. By the time it comes, in fact, only one choice still seems possible.

The narrative throughout has a slightly old-fashioned feel, like a bedtime story. It’s an absorbing but comfortable read, imaginative in the details if familiar in its outline. The invention of the library as the machinery through which different lives can be accessed is sure to please readers and has the advantage of being both magical and factual. Every library is a liminal space; the Midnight Library is different in scale, but not kind. And a vision of limitless possibility, of new roads taken, of new lives lived, of a whole different world available to us somehow, somewhere, might be exactly what’s wanted in these troubled and troubling times.

Source: New York Times 

Book Review: To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

 The Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, 1961

The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic.

Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee takes readers to the roots of human behavior – to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos.

Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.

With endless books and infinitely more to be written in the future, it is rare occasion that I take the time to reread a novel. And this time it’s To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, a timeless classic. The first time I read this I was much, much younger and I remember loving it then. Over fifteen years later, it still held so much for me – wonderful language and characters that I never forgot about and relevancy even so many years later. Harper Lee is one of the best female authors.

The story in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is told from the point of view of Scout (Jean-Louise Finch), a six year old girl, through various events that happen in the town of Maycomb and in particular, the court case of Tom Robinson as her father Atticus Finch acts as Tom’s defence lawyer. Tom, a black man who has been accused of raping a young white woman, has to endure multiple racial attacks. Atticus, widely described as the “most enduring fictional image of racial heroism”, describes the events to Scout so that she sees that all people should be treated equally.

The narrator of this story is young tomboy Jean Louise (Scout), and her observations of Maycomb and people’s behavior are simple, honest, and visually very rich. I had no problem picturing Scout, Jem and Dill’s childish efforts to draw Boo Radley out of his house, or Calpurnia taking the kids to a colored church.

But when, after 128 pages, the court case begins and the plot really becomes intriguing, you immediately feel a rise in tension and excitement. Here Jem and Atticus become the main characters instead of Scout because they are more aware of the risks and importance of the case, although Scout’s moment with the mob was heartwrenchingly beautiful in it’s innocence.

The last part of the book was less tense but never dull: it was important to show the aftermath and the effects of the case on different class – and races – of people to convey the impact of Atticus’ actions. Because back in 1935 and even now, in our current political situation, standing up for what’s right while the majority is against you, is an incredible brave and difficult thing to do.

One thing especially about this story that stood out to me, are the interesting gender roles in this book. We have Atticus who isn’t only presented as an amazing father but also as a great male character, because he’s patient, courteous, clever…but not traditionally masculine. In contrast with Bob Ewell, the main antagonist, Atticus isn’t physically strong, doesn’t use strong language, and hates violence (example: he keeps his shooting skills a secret from his children).

His sister, aunt Alexandra, is a very traditional female figure who wants Scout to behave more ‘lady like’, and because Scout doesn’t like her (at first), we as readers dislike her too. Acting as her opposites are Calpurnia and Miss Maudie, who neither show traditional feminine characteristics like politeness and charm, but both are presented as good and right.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a well-loved book for many good reasons, but I was very surprised by its diverse male and female characters, who make this story even richer than it already is.

Source: business insider

Review of "The Knight in Rusty Armor" by Robert Fisher

The book, written 30 years ago, includes a Forward which sums it up nicely: This is a lighthearted tale of a desperate knight in search of his true self. His journey reflects our own - filled with hope and despair, belief and disillusionment, laughter and tears. Anyone who has ever struggled with the meaning of life and love will discover profound wisdom and truth as this delightful fantasy unfolds. "The Knight" is an experience that will expand your mind, touch your heart, and nourish your soul.

This book was recommended to me by a fellow business coach who frequently utilizes it when working with his clients. It is a short read, but I recommend that you not read it too quickly, as you might miss some of the superb lessons and insights that are packed into it.

Here is a summary of the story, including some of its key points and lessons (from my perspective):

Chapter 1 - The Knight's Dilemma

Although he thought of himself as a good, kind, and loving man (e.g., he fought foes who were bad, mean and hateful; he slew dragons; and he rescued fair damsels in distress), he wanted to be the number one knight in the kingdom and so he was never satisfied. Unfortunately, he neglected his wife and son because he was either away on a crusade or preoccupied with his knight business when he was home.

He had become so enamored with his armor that he wore it constantly around their castle (even to dinner and to bed) and it began to become his sole identity.

The knight was faced with a dilemma when his wife threatened to take their son and leave if he wouldn't take off his armor (so she could see who he really was). Not wanting to lose his family, he went to remove his helmet but it didn't budge. When the local blacksmith couldn't remove it either, the knight knew he had to search for help in other lands, in the form of Merlin the Magician.

Chapter 2 - In Merlin's Woods

The knight searched the woods for months looking for Merlin, but without success. He was losing his hope and self-confidence when he finally found Merlin sitting in the woods, surrounded by animals of the forest. When the knight said that he had been looking for Merlin and was lost for months, Merlin corrected him saying "All your life" (that he has been lost). The knight responded that he hadn't come all this way to be insulted, but Merlin commented that "Perhaps you have always taken the truth to be an insult."

The knight was now upset and wanted to leave, but the weight of the armor had made him too weak to climb back on his horse and ride away. Merlin said that this was fortunate because "A person cannot run and also learn. He must stay in one place for a while." Merlin then told the knight that he was not born with the armor and the reason he had put it on in the first place was because he was so afraid. The knight responded that he wore the armor for protection and "to prove that I was a good, kind, and loving knight." "If you really were good, kind, and loving, why did you have to prove it?" Merlin asked. The knight then asked "Why do you always answer a question with another question?" to which Merlin replied "And why do you always seek the answers to your questions from others?"

Chapter 3 - The Path of Truth

Merlin sent the knight on his way down a new path, saying that "People are often unaware of the path they are on" and reminding him of his purpose: to get rid of his armor. This new path, the Path of Truth, looked narrow and steep to the knight, and although he wasn't sure it was worth the climb, he knew he needed to try it. Merlin agreed, saying "Your decision to take an unknown trail while encumbered with heavy armor takes courage." When Merlin mentioned that at the top of the Path there would be three castles blocking his way, the knight became excited, saying eagerly that "There will be a princess inside each castle, and I'll slay the dragon guarding her and rescue -" But Merlin interrupted him, saying "There will be no princesses in any of these castles. You have to learn to save yourself first."

Merlin continued. "The first castle is named Silence; the second, Knowledge; and the third, Will and Daring. Once you enter them, you will find your way out only after you have learned what you are there to learn." The knight sensed that this journey was going to be much more difficult than a crusade and Merlin agreed, saying "There is a different battle to be fought on the Path of Truth. The fight will be learning to love yourself."

Chapter 4 - The Castle of Silence

After many perils, the knight finds and enters The Castle of Silence, only to discover that the king of his home kingdom is there, working on his own self-discovery. The two have a long conversation, during which the king speaks words of wisdom such as: "One can't really see until one understands." "Most of us are trapped within our armor." "Being quiet is more than not talking." "Everybody understands crusades, but very few understand truth." After the king departs, the knight spends (what turns out to be) a very long time in silence, contemplating who he is and how to find the hidden door (of enlightenment) that would lead him to the next part of his journey. Exhausted from the deep exploration of himself, the knight eventually falls into a deep sleep, awakening outside of the castle. It is there that he discovers that his helmet has fallen away!

Chapter 5 - The Castle of Knowledge

Back on the Path of Truth, the knight walks all day before coming to the Castle of Knowledge and finding an inscription on the wall, which read: Knowledge is the light by which you shall find your way. And then another that read: Have you mistaken need for love? As he sat awhile and contemplated these readings, it dawned on him that he'd needed the love of his wife and son (and all of the damsels he had rescued) because he didn't love himself. And if he didn't love himself, he couldn't really love others. As the knight admitted this to himself, Merlin the Magician appeared and told him that "You have discovered a great truth. You can love others only to the extent that you love yourself."

The knight also came to understand that his ambition for becoming the best knight in the land might have led him astray. Merlin wondered aloud if the knight had been so busy trying to become, that he couldn't enjoy just being. Merlin said that "Ambition that comes from the mind can get you [material riches]. However, only ambition that comes from the heart can also bring happiness." When the knight pledged that, from that moment on, his ambition would come from the heart, he magically found himself back on the Path of Truth... and the armor on his arms and legs had fallen away.

Chapter 6 - The Castle of Will and Daring

The next day, the knight arrived at the drawbridge to the Castle of Will and Daring. When he was halfway across, a huge, fire-breathing dragon lumbered out who was aptly named the Dragon of Fear and Doubt. The knight was frightened, however, he recalled that Merlin once said that self-knowledge could kill the Dragon of Fear and Doubt, because self-knowledge is truth and truth is mightier than the sword. With his new-found knowledge that he was born good, kind, and loving, and that he didn't need to prove anything to anyone, he realized that he didn't have to feel fear and doubt. The dragon was only an illusion.

Mustering up all his courage, the knight marched toward the dragon, chanting to himself "Fear and doubt are illusions." The dragon threw gigantic flames at the knight, but none set fire to him. The dragon became smaller and smaller until it was no bigger than a frog, and then began spitting small seeds at the knight. But these seeds - the Seeds of Doubt - didn't stop the knight either. He had conquered the dragon who said in a small voice to the knight "I'll be back again and again to stand in your way"... and then the dragon vanished. Self-knowledge had killed the Dragon of Fear and Doubt, and the knight thought that nothing could stop him now.

The Final Chapter - The Summit of Truth

To complete this part of his journey of self-discovery, the knight needed to climb over sharp rocks on his way to the Summit of Truth. Near the top and blocking his path, he found a huge boulder with an inscription chiseled on it: Though this universe I own, I possess not a thing, for I cannot know the unknown if to the known I cling. He was no longer certain of all of the things he thought he knew about himself: such as his identify, his beliefs, and his judgments. He did know that he was clinging to the jagged rocks, so to know the unknown, he felt that he needed to let go, even if the fall might kill him. Trusting in "life, the force, the universe, God - whatever you want to call it," the knight let go and plunged down.

During his fall, the knight released his guilt, judgments, and excuses, accepting full responsibility for his life. And he was now unafraid. As an unfamiliar calm overtook him, he found himself rising back up and then standing on top of the mountain. "He'd let go of all that he'd feared and all he had known and possessed. His willingness to embrace the unknown had set him free. Now the universe was his to experience and enjoy." He cried tears of joy which melted away the last of his armor. He smiled through the tears, unaware that a radiant, new light shone from him.




By Kevin Brimhall 

The untold Search for Lost Beauty and Sensuality by Eve and Mary

Western Art Vanishes Together with Mary Magdalene
A remarkable discovery leads to a trail of unusual historical and cultural revelations

My discovery of the virtually hidden medieval sculpture of "Eve in the Garden of Eden" on a church capital in the Basilica of Mary Magdalene at Vézelay, Burgundy, eastern France sets the scene. This Eve sculpture evolves into a springboard for exploring in depth a number of significant historical and cultural themes.

The sculpture itself is unique for its time as it displays an unexpected three dimensional realism in art and is provocative in its nudity - qualities which stand in contrast to and break with the 500 year old tradition of medieval art, which is in the main flat, elongated and non-realistic. However, whatever its artistic form we cannot escape the sculpture's ominous Christian message of original sin and the damning of the human race setting up human society on a very troubling foundation.

Yet, the sculpture's fresh artistic style leads us back to the realism of the thousand year Greco-Roman heritage which had been excised throughout most of the Middle Ages. While the purpose of Medieval art was to serve as a didactic tool for assisting to reveal the divine and so draw one closer to God, the preceding Greco-Roman artistic tradition indulged in providing aesthetic pleasure.

Apart from its avant-garde artistic breakthrough another equally important fact is Eve's location in the town of Vézelay in a church dedicated to Mary Magdalene. Could the sculpture have any connection to Mary Magdalene or to Vézelay, or perhaps to both Mary and Vézelay? It was Eve's location in the Magdalene Church which led me to investigate whether any such linkage did indeed exist between Eve and Mary. The New Testament hardly mentions Mary Magdalene, and when it does the text is often vague and biased. So I explored the Apocryphal (excluded gospels) Christian sources which revealed to me that Mary Magdalene was actually far more central to the rise of Christianity than was generally accepted by the mainstream. In fact she was Jesus' closest follower and friend, proving herself to be more loyal and courageous than any of the apostles, especially Peter. Amazingly, she overshadowed Peter in all she did.

However, Mary's prominence and influence among Jesus' followers later terrified the Church Fathers lest she accrue too much power, for she virtually leads the band of dispirited followers after Jesus' death. And it's clear that Christianity's survival owes a big debt to her.

The Church Fathers dismissed power sharing with women and refused to accept anything but a male dominated church. This comes to a head in the early 6th century when Pope Gregory 1 the Great makes a decisive response to Mary's ever-increasing influence. After having gained autocratic authority as the sole religious and secular western leader, he disgraced Mary Magdalene's historic image by emphasizing her sinfulness and calling her nothing but a harlot. From words to action, he then took the extreme measure of eliminating her together with all her symbolic saintliness from the Christian matrix.

Pope Gregory's attack on Mary was actually an assault on the original Christian ethical and egalitarian approach to women at Christ's time and in particular abusing to Christ himself, who befriended Mary. As her intimacy with Jesus caused jealousy among some apostles and competitiveness with Peter, Gregory's approach to Mary was to bury the rivalry with Peter.

And now from the upper echelons of the Church the message of Mary's dismissal as well as the accompanying emphasis on Sin and Salvation, Heaven and Hell had still to filter down to the masses - and this was achieved primarily through an omnipresent style of novel artwork to an illiterate population. And so a unique medieval art style was born.

To understand medieval art I felt I had to first get to better acquainted with the abandoned 1000 year old Greco-Roman artistic heritage. So I set off to the source of western art - to Greece, to discover the original art form and appreciate its adulation and centrality of the human body, its mammoth splendid buildings and breathe the overriding free spirit allowing it all to happen. Greece provided me with the knowledge and insights into that lost heritage of western art enabling me to pursue the replaced innovative medieval art form.

In the 5th and 6th centuries the concepts and free spirit of the Greco-Roman heritage in all its aspects was gradually stifled by the Church Fathers. The former liberal atmosphere was now replaced with a censorious authoritative political-religious system. Consequently, the former pride of the human body was now replaced by an approach of shame which considered the body as sinful and inferior, and merely the temporary casing of the immortal human soul.

The change in approach to the human body was reflected in the new Christian art form. The art style now became flat, two-dimensional and elongated. It no longer aimed at providing aesthetic delight but instead became a didactic tool for depicting and delivering messages of a divine nature. The essence of the art form now became inundated with portrayals of Heaven and Hell. And medieval life evolved into an age immersed in angst awaiting the fate of the soul after death. At the Last Judgment would the soul be weighed to Salvation or Hell? And the horror of Hell was implacable. So everyday life was bound up in concern of sin, and sin was associated of course with sex and beauty. The awesome descriptions of the fate possibly awaiting us were depicted in ubiquitous sculptures and other art forms.

The Greco-Roman art heritage was not the only loss to the western world. Simultaneously to the displacement of western art with the new medieval art form the image and cultural-religious heritage of Mary Magdalene is expunged from the Christian Matrix. She can no longer intervene to save Christian souls: and her symbolic empathy and mercy vanished too - or rather is intentionally faded out of history.

Let us explore what Mary had accomplished after Christ died on the Cross and left his band of followers leaderless.

Various sources indicate that Mary Magdalene left the Holy Land like the other Apostles to spread the Gospel. One tradition holds that she made her way to Emperor Tiberius in Rome to Christianize the Roman Empire (300 years too early). Another claims she made her home in Ephesus in Turkey. A stranger story even claims she reached Glastonbury in southern England. Yet the South of France became the most agreed upon destination and supposedly still holds her remains today. Therefore I chose to follow in Mary's footsteps and view the mixture of testimony and folklore myself. I made my way to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer not far from Marseilles on the French Mediterranean coast where she had supposedly landed and preached. After having converted the locals to Christianity she left to go about fifty kilometers further north to the Sainte Baume Mountains.

Arriving at the Sainte Baume region I hiked up the steep path to the grotto where Mary continued to convert the pagans to Christianity and made her final home. The magical cave holds a reliquary with a few of her bodily remains.

Mary's preaching focused on eliminating paganism in the Roman world, particularly Venus and the cult of the Vestal Virgins. For Roman society the belief in the god Venus led directly to the cult of the Vestal Virgin. The worship of the Vestal Virgins emphasizes the considerable value placed on physical female beauty in Roman society. Although the Church made compromises and accepted certain pagan ideas it had to eliminate Venus. So hundreds of years before her dismissal from Christianity's mainstream Mary Magdalene was exploited by the Church Fathers to substitute for Venus, whose final suppression came with Rome's conversion to Christianity in the 4th century. The worship of one female against another was manipulated by the Church in order to elevate the significance of Mary Magdalene. Mary's divine beauty (her physical beauty was not completely veiled too) vied against Venus' physical beauty. Divine love eventually wins - Mary is victorious!

And so for the next two hundred years Mary and her symbolism imbued with divine powers replaces Venus. Gradually the Christian concept of divine spiritual beauty is made concrete in paintings and icons. Mary is acknowledged as emanating virtues of compassion and empathy and is also worshiped for possessing the mysterious power to intercede divinely and so save souls.

Following my visit to Sainte Baume I made my way to the neighboring Church of St. Maximin, where Mary Magdalene is interred. Deep down in the church's crypt lies the sarcophagus, skull veiled behind a death mask, and a beautiful reliquary containing more of her bodily relics, which leads me back again to the Basilica of Mary Magdalene in Vézelay, hundreds of miles away to the east in Burgundy where I had seen some of Mary's relics too.

And why was the church at Vézelay dedicated to Mary Magdalene when she had died at Sainte Baume and been interred at Saint Maximin? I found the answer to be - relics - and their significance for medieval churches. Relics raised the status of the church, put it on the pilgrim map and brought in a steady income. And so some of her relics at St. Maximin were stolen and brought to Vézelay. But why was there a need to dedicate the church to Mary Magdalene if she had been removed from Christian matrix? And the answer to this was: we had now reached the High Middle Ages and Mary was being reintroduced by popular demand. And the Basilica of Vézelay dedicated to Mary Magdalene was the official stamp of approval of her rehabilitation.

Mary's return to the Christian matrix was also engineered by an overall wind of change. It occurred between the 11 to 14 centuries in Europe when a general transformation came about including a relaxation of tension and angst. Among such beneficial influences were the rise of universities, the introduction of courtly love and romance, an agricultural revolution, a demographic rise, and more. Yet Mary Magdalene's iconic return also came with a warning, and this was delivered in the numerous works of art where Mary could be viewed holding or being in close proximity to a skull. On her Saint's Day in July, Mary's skull is revealed in public in a church parade. Mary's skull not only symbolizes death but highlights the triviality of the material world, a world tainted with sin, and so elevating the significance of salvation.

Yet, as we gradually surface into the early modern era a one-sided message of doom is no longer fully acceptable and some kind of a balance is yearned for. Does the new realism of the Eve sculpture, which places the human being more in the center of things, provide an antidote to Mary's ominous communication through the skull? On my second visit to Vézelay I pondered the Eve sculpture and considered it to be a mixture of both doom and hope. On the one hand it is a work of sensibility and individuality positing the centrality of man- a positive breakthrough by a rebel artist. Yet, on the other hand, one cannot escape the essence of the sculpture - a reminder of the first act of sin to be inherited by the human race for ever.

It didn't take long during the High Middle Ages before Vézelay Eve's influence spread its wings and affected the transformation of art in general and sculpture in particular. Thus we witness the spread of the Lilith theme and the daring Lilith sculpture in the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. It does now seem that Vézelay Eve was the first bullet fired targeting the return of the Greco-Roman heritage. Vézelay Eve and then Lilith show that art was definitely going through a transition in the 12 and 13th centuries - undoubtedly mirroring the overall cultural-religious and other changes. The heavy and dark Romanesque gives way to the sublime height and light of the Gothic art. Sculptures are now free standing and it's no longer taboo to express emotions, as can be witnessed in the Gothic sculpture of the Angel Gabriel displaying his magical smile at the Reims Cathedral.

The anonymous artisans have now evolved into artists bearing famous names such as Giotto and Simone Martini. And these artists are no longer solely in the service of the church but are more naturally inclined towards art for art's sake. Their new art works are ubiquitous, especially in civic building such as palaces and town halls and not just in churches. And a number of Giotto's paintings are specifically aimed at helping to rehabilitate Mary Magdalene, as does the Order of the Knights Templar which dedicates itself to Mary in the 13th century. In the final analysis Mary Magdalene has truly taken her place once again in the matrix of the Christian mainstream.

The sinful Augustine City of Man is losing its hold. New values are emerging: restoration of realistic art, acceptance of natural beauty and rehabilitation of Mary Magdalene. History is witnessing the arrival of the first swallow in the spring of emerging modern man. The Church now relaxes its emphasis on Heaven and Hell and moves over to stressing Christian virtue and vice while highlighting the virtues of Mary Magdalene, namely: compassion, empathy and charity.

As with most things, the early Greeks got there first. They had been preaching virtue long before the Christian Church. And Rome inherited the Greek virtues although modifying some. Yet the essence was Greek and this essence with its later Christian packing and merging of world views enabled a cultural-religious jump to the rise of Humanism in the 14th and 15th centuries. Humanism was the convergence of Christian and secular values; Donatello expressed this in his unique sculpture of the elderly Mary Magdalene. Her qualities are the essence of humanism. And it was this cultural movement which carved the way directly to the Renaissance.

And so standing in the Church at Vézelay where the Eve sculpture is the essential link in restoring centrality of humankind, I feel we have come full circle in the search for lost beauty and sensuality. And Sandro Botticelli's painting of the rise of Aphrodite from the sea crowns the new era in its perception of beauty.

The first pope could have been a woman. Why isn't Teresa lll or Catherine V waving at us from the Vatican window in St. Peter's Square? After all, Jesus made no bones about gender issues. And Mary Magdalene was certainly most fitting to be the first bishop of Rome. So what when wrong? As is often the case, the issue is the bending of truth.



Courtesy: ezinearticles

There is always something to learn

A personal experience of Sandra Nardoni

I'm reading this book called "Discover Your Child's Learning Style" by Mariaemma Willis and Victoria Kindle Hodson. I've been wading through all the work we should have been doing in the last few months while we've been dealing with depression, sickness and injury. Rest is so foreign to me that, though I have tried to accept it, there is still a reality that three kids need mom to be well. (That's for another article though.)

Back to the topic at hand..Ahem..This book is more in depth than any other I've ever read on this topic and I think, like God always does, He has led me to it for such a time as this. I have been noticing both positive and negative things about this school year and sans injury etc.. have observed a few things that have given me some clues about what I'm doing right and what I need to still figure out. So, for those of you with some time on your hands who would like to get a peek into our crazy world, here goes. (This will be a long one.)

First, Rose is thriving on our co-op diet of history songs and all the other songs we incorporate into the memory work. I definitely feel she is benefiting from this environment, as she is able to do much of what the other kids do, in spite of her severe learning disabilities. She is gaining confidence and knowledge at the same time. Because of this book(the learning styles book) I think I'm discovering why she is doing so well. I'm still helping her do the learning assessment but ideas are unfolding about how to unlock the girl's brain. (A six year journey this Tuesday-the anniversary of our first meeting.) I think she learns in pictures (the timeline cards and other resources we utilize are very detailed visually) and also in some ways she is an auditory learner. She learns just about anything if you put it in a song. (Which is strange, because she can't hear or repeat tones correctly.) In addition to this she has to be alone with me to truly learn. That means door to the kitchen is shut, boys are outside or in their rooms. Ug. I've known this one for a while but thought I would reiterate it here. Still no clue how to use this information to help her in reading and math but my little brain is grinding right now.

The next positive thing is that Gabriel is learning well on his own with the flashcards from our co-op so I don't have to double my time to teach them the memory work because he likes to do it on his own. Hallelujah!!!! Also, I think his proficiency for math is greater than I thought. I am thinking he is the type of math person described in the book as having a Mechanical Reasoning talent. He doesn't memorize facts super quick but can work out the processes needed in the problems very easily. Who knew? I also believe Gabriel has the Performer disposition which also involves moving. This is why read-aloud time is torture if he can't play with Legos! It is also why church is such a challenge--although I recently began doing a children's story with a picture to color so he's more occupied during the discussion time. I still am looking for a creative and socially acceptable way for him to be in the church service without flipping out though. (We go to a family-integrated house church) The down side of this not- so- surprising discovery is that I can't really transition to more "scholarly" approaches for him or Ezra (get to Ezra in a moment) because they are both movers to some extent.

Now to Ezra. Ezra is in the eighth grade. All year I've been trying to get him to "act" like a junior high responsible student. He isn't the defiant type so he just kind of disappears and works on all his stuff--rabbits, piano, knitting, hunting, drawing and certainly not working on his assignments. Then, when I ask about it he says he needs help--on EVERYTHING. Sigh. He is very intelligent and I know he is capable of doing much of the work on his own but he swears he can't. So a few days ago when we started our History curriculum again afIter a long hiatus he was SOOOO excited and said he was glad to be with the rest of the family again. Hmmmm... Turns out, I'm thinking he may have what this book calls a relational disposition, which means he likes to be with people when he learns. This would explain a lot about my failing miserably in motivating him this year. So my next job is converting all his assignments into the type of assignments he will really understand. No problem.

All this information is good but it's going to take me a while to sort it out and certainly will take me a while to find solutions for each of my learners. I hope my narrative about my children will help some of you to figure out your own kids!

Courtesy: Sandra Nardoni