The View Through the Medicine Wheel by Leo Rutherford

A Review by Hayley Wynne

As someone who doesn’t have an inner built ‘SatNav’ system; her sense of direction is pretty non-existent even going from one end of town to the other; the concept of a book providing maps on how to journey through life creatively, happily and healthily was intriguing.

I wasn’t disappointed.

Leo’s writing style was easy to follow; the narrative is accompanied by diagrams (maps or wheels) for those of us who like to visualise everything, although this is not the type of book or subject to rush through. Quite the contrary, I took a fair while to complete it, solely because it was so interesting. Although the book contains Shamanic maps of how the universe works, there is no technical jargon to try to figure out; which again was a bonus.

There were many ‘aha’ moments for me and it is really interesting to place yourself on each wheel to see where you are ‘on the journey’ and how to go forward. Be brave and have a go!

I was reminded of Colin and his reassuring and optimistic attitude in quite a few parts of this book! ‘If you don’t like your life, dream a new dream’, ‘all that we can imagine, we can potentially make into reality’ and ‘co-creators of our own destiny’; even though I’m still on the journey of ‘mastering my own self’ I felt that the book was extremely positive and helped to identify some personal mythologies I wasn’t fully aware of.

The book contains some background information on Leo himself and his personal journey, but it also shows some of his humour, too; I laughed at Leo’s definition of ‘fine, thank you’ in response to a ‘how are you’ question and wondered how many of us would actually use that response if we knew! Actually, many probably would! Now you simply must read the book just to figure that one out!

I would recommend this book to those who have experience of Shamanic Maps as well as those of us who have not, purely because I feel that the book has something to offer us all.

At the end of the day, the point of the life is the journey, so I hope you find the maps within the book as interesting and as thought provoking as I did. Now, where is that compass!

Hayley

Sivananda Buried Yoga

By Anne Mills

Initially, I was under the impression that Yogi Manmoyanand was arrogant and self-involved, but then soon realised that this was what I was supposed to think, as he described his feelings as a young man looking for his spiritual pathway amongst the Buddhist sects, Hinduism and even Christianity. He explored hatha and then raja yoga to prepare his body for higher meditation but finally became disillusioned with all the hollow devotions, that he was not reaching the spiritual growth he was hoping for to explain the meaning of life. In a chance inflammatory meeting on a train, he met a sadhu, an ascetic practitioner of yoga, who was going to change his life. His name was Kripanand Saraswati, and with gentle persuasion and play on this self-important young man’s sense of conscience, he persuaded him to come with him to the Himalayas where the ashram (settlement) for this Hindu sect of monks practised their yoga and philosophy. Through the purification of kriyas (practices) and balance of energy in asanas (yoga poses) and also by the teachings of true yoga by the guru Angadanand Saraswati, he progressed spiritually along a challenging pathway. He learned about persistence of knowledge from one life to another, and about settling karmic debt, finally discovering the possibility of transcendence into the highest realm of existence through meditation, where he was able to merge and fuse with cosmic resonance.

I found this book fairly hard to read, with pages littered with many Sanskrit words in italics, including all the Sanskrit names for the yoga postures, (many of which I have actually attempted in the past). Even though I resorted to Googling many times, and writing notes and diagrams to understand the different levels of consciousness, there were many elucidating and thought-provoking perspectives, and interest was sustained by edifying parables - it was worth the struggle. It is only by the last chapter that the meaning and revelation of the title is revealed.

The Divine Matrix by Greg Braden

A review by Colin Whitby

As Greg states in his introduction, if you’ve always sought to answer the questions "are we really connected, and if so, how deep does that connection go?" and "How much power do we really have to change our world?" then you’ll like this book.

With the Divine Matrix Greg digs into some of the more recent scientific discoveries and uncovers how even our most eloquent scientists have been struggling to describe the quantum theory. He quotes Michio Kaku, the co-author of the unifying theory of superstrings, when he said "It is often stated that of all the theories proposed this century, the silliest is the quantum theory. Some say that the only thing that the quantum theory has going for it is, in fact, that it is unquestionably correct".

So what is missing for the theory to make sense, well Greg believes it is us. We are the precise factor that’s missing in the existing theories, specifically it is our ability to purposefully create the conditions of consciousness (thoughts, feelings, emotions, and beliefs) that lock one possibility of our choosing into the reality of our lives.

Following his discussions regarding the scientific theory Greg goes on to give some insights into how the Universe is talking to us through the Divine Matrix and how our beliefs and thoughts create our reality. I particularly liked Greg’s comparison to a computer, where when we change the commands (our feelings, emotion, prayer and beliefs) we change the program that runs reality.

There are some similarities here to the way Suzanna Kennedy describes her Divine Human Upgrade, and going back a few years, how Lynne McTaggart described the same force in her book The Field. Another book in a similar vein is The Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton.

For me I find it reassuring that science is beginning to link our energetic selves to the world rather than keep trying to prove we are not connected, it’s a shame they have taken so long, after all the quantum theory goes back as far as 1900.

This is a great book for those people like myself who like to see links and proofs appearing in our scientific world that we are spiritual and energetic beings, and we do have ‘something’ to do with creating our reality. As Greg says ‘For some of you, what you are about to read is a new and very different way of thinking about how things work in life. For others, it’s a comforting synthesis of what you already know, or at least suspect to be true.

For over 20 years, Gregg Braden has searched high mountain villages, remote monasteries and forgotten texts to uncover their timeless secrets. Combining his discoveries with the best science of today, his original research crosses the traditional boundaries of science, history, and religion offering fresh insights into ancient mysteries. In doing so he has redefined our relationship to our inner and outer worlds, while sharing his life-affirming message of hope and possibility.

http://www.greggbraden.com/

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

A Review by Anne Mills

In 1988, Paul Coelho, a renowned Brazilian author, originally wrote this book in Portuguese, but it became so popular, it was translated into 56 languages. It is a story of a simple shepherd, Santiago, who, while wandering from pasture to pasture to feed his sheep as was his rustic, prosaic living, aspires to follow a recurrent dream. Aided by opportunistic omens, he sells his sheep and sets out to pursue a spiritual and physical path to find love, treasure and the meaning of life. Along the way, he learns many things – the art of selling crystal-ware, alchemy, the making of the Philosopher’s Stone, the Arabic language, universal language, the way of the desert, and how it is possible to turn into the wind. He travels across the African continent through the Sahara desert to Egypt and the pyramids, where he finally has a painful epiphany.

The theme throughout is of the law of attraction and how if you really desire something and focus on it, the universe will contrive by harmonious vibrations to turn it into reality. There are strong parallels to this story in Hermann Hesse’s "Siddartha", the story of the a young Indian Bramin’s son to find his destiny; and the theme of luck or positive thinking is echoed in many books and stories including "The Secret" written more recently.

Deep and spiritual "The Alchemist" may be, but I found it written simply and easy to read, and once I had picked it up, it held me until the unanticipated end! Reading it, has inspired me further to follow my spiritual pathway, and I found it enlightening, and convinced me of the power of positive thinking.

Soul Companions – By Karen Sawyer

A Review by Colin Whitby

With Soul Companions Karen has brought together people to collectively share their experiences with and beliefs about Spirit. In her introduction Karen describes how she used to think that all spirit guides were ‘dead people’, alive in another dimention ‘somewhere up there’. Through her research for this book she now fully accepts that, dead or alive, every life form has a spirit body and therefore has the potential to be a spirit guide.

Most of the stories in the book were transcribed and written from conversations with the contributors, however some stories were penned by the contributors themselves.

For myself reading the book I found it very easy to pick up and put down, quite important in a busy world sometimes.

Each contribution was relatively short although many were so thought provoking I needed some time to assimilate the information.

I liked Philip Carr-Gomm’s contribution about his guide Nuinn (Ross Nichols) who was responsible for reviving a type of Druidry based on connecting to the earth in a very deep way as a source of spirituality. Without giving too much away Philip is now Chief of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, an organisation that his guide Nuinn was founder.

Dr. Geo Athena Trevarthen describes how she grew up in a Celtic Shamanic tradition, and suggests that the whole idea of having spirit guides is based on the idea that God isn’t done with talking with us yet. There’s always fresh learning and love coming to us from Spirit and from our Spirit guides.

There are so many contributors it is difficult to pick out the most enjoyable reads, suffice to say that there is a view on just about every aspect of spirit and contact, all with an amazing and mind stretching variety of forms. There was one story where the author had trouble with her printer, only to find that the printer has a spirit too, who had been ignored. The moment she acknowledge her printer’s spirit, it began to work well again.

Soul Companions has provided a similar connection to the many people ‘out there’ that this web site was intended to give, showing that there are so many ways to express yourself, no way is right or wrong, it is what suits you in the moment that is important.

Colin.

An established freelance journalist, Karen Sawyer writes from fresh and esoteric perspectives which awaken others to the intrinsic magic of our world. She lives by the coast in Wales, and organises Soul Companion events, details at www.soulcompanions.org .