Tag Archive: metaphysical



The New Mandala - Eastern Wisdom for Western LivingThe New Mandala – Eastern Wisdom for Western Living by John Lundin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When I tried to listen to the text-to-speech of the Kindle version the other day, it didn’t work. I decided to try again last night, and it worked out quite nicely.

I felt a little lost at first as the easter religions and the Dalai Lama are less known to me than the Judeo-Christian Western religions. However, author John Lundin quickly helped us see how familiar those seemingly foreign concepts are. I found myself quite interested.

This book will need multiple reads. This is the first one to get acquainted and see our common interests. But next, I want to go through and practice some of the meditation and kindnesses Mr. Lundin teaches us to use.

I highly recommend this book for seekers and for those who love comparative religions.

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Here is Linda’s prompt:

“Hi there! I’m back with our nineteenth prompt for Just Jot it January 2025. Today, our prompt comes to us from the wonderful Willow. Thank you, Willow! Please be sure to visit Willow’s blog to read her posts and say hello. And follow her while you’re there if you’re not already.

Your prompt for JusJoJan January 19th, 2025 is “why.” Use it any way you’d like. Have fun!

Why do I write reviews? It started out in the same way as blogging. I needed a place to keep track. What have I read? Sure, I can go to GoodReads to see if I have read a book, but since I try to record bits of my life here, I can see how that book choice or emotions of the day reflect each other. What I read can affect my life. And my life can carry into my thoughts as I read.

Why did I read this particular book? The author gave me the book long ago when I lived in Reno. He live(d) in Lake Tahoe at the time. I promised a review, so I put it on my ‘Currently Reading’ shelf on GoodReads. That was to prompt me to read it soon.

That shelf has overgrown. When a library or Libby book comes up, it goes to the top of the list over those I own. Suddenly, I have 85 books I am supposedly currently reading. Ha! So my new plan is to pull from the bottom of the list (first books added) and then back to the top, the latest added. My plan is to eventually meet in the middle. Does anyone want to take bets on how long that’s going to take?

I was surprised at how much I appreciated this particular book. It seemed to start rather boring. But soon I found that there were answers here I’d been asking, even though I didn’t know I was asking those questions.

Why. The word my kids learned nearly as soon as they could talk. It is an amazing work that mostly keeps me wondering. How often did I hear my babies ask, “Why is the sky blue?” Or just “Why” to nearly anything. I feel we should stay in that frame of mind. Stay young and keep wondering, WHY?


SaraliSarali by Susana Gino
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sometimes I read a book and feel raw from the length of the read. Granted, this was a Kindle ARC, so I’m sure a lot of the story will improve with the reviews.

The technical problem that has probably been addressed by now, but it took me out of the story every time, the author and/or the title and page number (?) pop up often and are inserted into the tale being told. I suppose if I were strictly reading it, my eyes would skip it, but since I read via text-to-speech, it is all very jarring.

Overall, the story was interesting, though the main character seemed in her head most of the time. The erotic scenes were almost too much while sorting through her growing maturity. And though the main character, who calls herself either Sara or Sarali according to whether she was involved in a sexual pursuit or her own enlightenment.

Though the main character seeks to learn of her sexuality and help others through their experiences with her, a sort of prostitution, that wasn’t my main problem with the main character. She seeks to be with her daughter out of love, and the relationship does grow. But her daughter’s safety ought to be her chief thought. A man who has such little control of himself as to rape a young woman and force her into marriage and having the resulting child, should not be trusted with that same child to raise on his own. What could he be doing to that child? It seems to me that should have been the character’s aim, not worry about what falsehoods he may speak. It is true, Sara needed to do some growing herself, but not once in her mental ravings about how unfair it was to her, did she mention what might be happening to her daughter.

My last problem with the book is how repetitive it was. I found myself wanting to find another book to read. Still, I think in a future edit or two that would be taken care of, and the newer readings will find an interesting read. As a seeming autobiography, the story reflects the way all our brains work in circular ways coming back to the trauma and trying to overcome it all. Worth the read.

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A Tale for the Time BeingA Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Over a decade ago, I met an online friend that would change or at least, modify my life. I met Judith on LiveJournal, you remember that old site, better than MySpace but not quite as social as FaceBook. Judith was chatting in her journal about Chris Baty and the NaNoWriMo scene (Which resulted in my first novel being written between the Ides of March and the Ides of April. I didn’t finish the novel then as we had to move to a new city and I just couldn’t stay with it. But I added more than enough wordage to that novel in November 2002 to “win”. (First of 10 or 11 novels since.)

The other thing Judith introduced me to was BookCrossing.com. The concept that grabbed me with BC was how my read book could be recycled to others and then the new reader and the old could discuss this story. The book could travel even when I couldn’t, so it felt like a message in a bottle thrown out to sea. It is fun to see where your book could end up and the friendships that develop over said book. I still belong but since my eyes aren’t what they used to be, I am happy for the invention of Kindle and other e-readers. So I release far fewer books nowadays.

Besides Judith, what do the above paragraphs have in common, and what do they have to do with ‘A Tale for the Time Being’? The art of writing and the art of reading. Both concepts play strong in this story. Rather than a message in a bottle, this message floats ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox in layers of freezer bags. The writer was in Tokyo, the reader/finder in Canada. Years separate the two. Yet a bond is formed. Oh, yeah, Judith read and reviewed this and hooked me in. I think she didn’t like the Zen parts of the book. I found that part delightful. I have to admit that most of the book is believable whereas the Zen bits are a little more ‘magical’. But the title twinkles with that magic. If you read it right.

Anyway, I HIGHLY recommend this book. I actually read it one and a third times. I borrowed the Kindle version from the library. Between reading it on my Kindle app on my Tablet and listening on my old Kindle text-to-speech, I managed to get to about 36% in. Then I found that my library also had the OverDrive version. So I restarted reading the book with the author’s voice. That pumped up my ratings for this wonderful tale. Each layer of depth into the story has its own built-in amazements. Level one, tree book, and the Kindle version, there are many footnotes and definitions to help with a deeper understanding of that time in history or that country, language. But the narration includes minor helps. Hearing a voice say the Japanese names or words adds to the believability of the whole story. Ms. Ruth Ozeki has an impeccable voice and narration, her variations of voices for each character supreme! I enjoyed rereading the first third with her help. I felt I gained deeper understanding just by hearing her. Please, if you get the chance to pair both versions, go for it!

By the way, I want to thank Jonelle Patrick and her Mysteries and website: http://jonellepatrick.me/ for introducing me to many contemporary Japanese subjects presented in A Tale for the Time Being. At least I was forewarned.

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