Thursday, August 12, 2010

Reading List: Waking the Global Heart

I recently finished the book Waking the Global Heart: Humanity's Rite of Passage from the Love of Power to the Power of Love by Anodea Judith. It was at once deeply troubling and wildly exciting and encouraging.
Anodea Judith is a well-known scholar on the Chakra system and has at least two other books using the chakras as a guidebook. In this book she outlines the entire world history of the Western World using the Chakra system as a reference. She endeavors to question and and answer things like: Who are we? Where did we come from? and Where are we going? (and will we survive to get there).

I have to say the Where did we come from? part, the history, was pretty astounding. I 'learned' these things in grade school, certainly. But to read about accounts of the type of torture humans put each other through and the types of injustices this world has witnessed was quite emotional for me. I am haunted particularly about descriptions of witch hunts performed by the church in the Middle Ages. But the whole History section was greatly needed as contrast for the next section.

Where are we Going? Here we come to a much brighter possible future for the world. A future in which we relate to each other as whole beings not just as a limited portion of ourselves (white, woman, young, old, knowledgeable) She also puts out the possibility that humanity is doomed. But of course, no one wants to dwell on that idea and instead Hope is so prevailing in the back portion of the book that you can't help but want to get involved and CHANGE THE WORLD DANG IT! It is reading these types of works that makes me charged up to help people in my classes and to just be a better person in general.

So, this one is Highly recommended by me. I think it is a good follow up to the Oprah phenomenon with the Eckert Tolle book A New Earth. This one has many of the same ideas and some hearty, meaty reasons WHY we are as we are and WHAT we can do about it.
If you pick it up, or have read it, please share your thoughts in a comment or email.
Contemplation: What is the one HUGE thing you would change about the world if you could? and follow that with, OK, now how can you change that thing in your own life?

No comments: