Village Life: Miss Read’s People and Places

©RKSilipo. All rights reserved.

Summer is less than a month away, so I go to my book shelves and check that Miss Read is where I think she is, ready for my annual visits to Fairacre and Thrush Green. I re-visit Caxley as well, but not quite as often.

I love these books and cannot recommend them highly enough. They have grace, wit and insight into what makes village people tick.

I had enjoyed those five years — the children, the little school, the pleasure of running my own school-house and of taking a part in village life. . .

. . . at last, I believed, I was accepted, if not as a proper native, at least as ‘Miss Read up at the School’, and not as ‘that new woman pushing herself forward’!

That’s how, on the first page of her first book, Miss Read, whose real name is Dora Saint, sets the scene for Village School and all of the delicious novels of Fairacre that followed it.

In far too many places in England today, the agreeable habit of taking afternoon tea has vanished.

Much too fattening . . . Quite unneccesary . . .

Taking tea is a highly civilized pastime, and fortunately is still in favour at Thrush Green, where it has been brought to a fine art. It is common practice in that pleasant village to invite friends to tea rather than lunch or dinner. . .

. . . said Ella, who is fond of her food, ‘when else can you eat home-made gingerbread, all squishy with black treacle?’

Thus begins Gossip from Thrush Green, one of my favourites from Miss Read’s other village series.

These are novels of character and place. There are plots, simple, homely plots– well-meaning villagers match making (disastrously) for the single woman happy to be single; the disappearing lead from the church roof and similarly disappearing supplies from a building site; fires and blizzards and other natural and unnatural catastrophes and the ramifications thereof; a bit of adultery here, obfuscation there– all the stuff of village life in the England of the mid 20th century.

It’s the characters, however, that keep me re-reading the books every summer: Dotty’s Collywobbles, a health condition known only in Thrush Green, always makes me smile. Ella and Dimity, two dissimilar friends who bump along compatibly together until, well into middle age, Dimity falls in love with the local rector and starts a new life. Winnie Bailey, the sensible doctor’s widow. Ben Curdle, grandson of the late Mrs. Curdle, owner and iron-fist manager of the travelling carnival that visited the town annuallyfor years. Thrush Green is filled with characters that every village knows.

The same is true for Fairacre, where the stories are narrated by the village school teacher. These focus on the children and the children’s families — which is to say, the whole village — and on Miss Read’s contented single life.

The third series is the Caxley Chronicles, three books covering four generations of two families in the market town of Caxley. These stories are just as beautifully told, and the characters as defly defined, but the stories of village life always interested me more.

These books are beautifully written. When I’m reading one, I am driven to read out sentences to my husband, adding, “Isn’t that an amazing sentence? It flows, it…” We’re both writers and know a unique and skillful turn of phrase when we read one.

Some of the Miss Read books are still in print, and those that aren’t can still be found in second-hand book shops all over England. It’s harder to find them in the States, but these days you can use the internet to order books from all over the world. I recommend

www.greenmetroplis.com

http://powellbooks.com

http://pickabook.co.uk

I avoid Amazon because, by selling magazines that promote dog fighting, they advocate cruelty to animals. The Humane Society of the United States is involved in legal proceedings to get them to stop. In fact, Pickabook has prices that are sometimes lower than Amazon’s. And all paperbacks at Green Metropolis are £3.75.

Good Dog, Carl – A Canine Babysitter with Lots of Stories to Tell

©2008,Ramona K Silipo. All rights reserved.
Good Dog Carl is the first in the series of Carl books by Alexadra Day, based on her own experiences with her dog. In this story, we meet The Mother who is seen only fleetingly, because the protagonist of these books is a cuddly, paternal Rottweiler, and his sidekick is a toddler.

These books are lushly illustrated, without text, or with only one or two lines of text at the beginning of the story to set up the premise. They are wonderful for very young children and their parents to “read” together. They spark imaginations and they show little ones that books are fun and exciting. These books are beautiful for parents to look at and enjoy as outstanding art for children, and they’re joyful for children because the adventures are activities that they themselves are learning about as toddlers and pre-schoolers.

In Good Dog ,Carl we meet Carl and his charge, and follow them through a typical day. In another story, we spend a day in the park; in another Carl takes Baby shopping, and so on.

In Carl’s Christmas, one of my favourites, the paternal Rottweiler takes the toddler on his back for a Christmas Eve adventure. The illustrations show the dog dressing the baby, the baby riding his back to the toy shop, finding gifts and having other small adventures. It closes with Carl, the baby and a mouse (with its present) all sleeping peacefully in front of the fireplace.

The series includes Carl’s Birthday, Carl’s Sleepy Afternoon, Carl Goes to Daycare, You’re a Good Dog Carl (different from the first book), Carl’s Summer Vacation, Carl Goes Shopping, Follow Carl!, Carl’s Masquerade, Carl’s Afternoon in the Park.

These books come in several different formats, from chunky board books to full sized picture books with sewn bindings and sturdy covers that are meant to last on your library shelves. They are fantastic gifts for the little ones, and are a joy for the grown ups to look at.

Tantra Courses and Workshops (Beginning Tantra)

©2008 RKSilipo. All rights reserved.

The reality is that, even if you live in a major city where you might find a legitimate Tantra master (male or female) near you, your most likely first instruction will be a weekend workshop or short course, with a number of other people or couples. While many of these workshops are, at best, a good introduction, they can be, at worst, emotionally fraught, even damaging. These workshops and teachers need to be approached with the same kind of consumer awareness you would use to consider a major purchase and the same intuitive and emotional discernment you use to identify trustworthy friends.

So where do you start? Before you begin, decide what KIND of Tantra you want to study. There are two fundamental choices:

• NEO-TANTRA, the westernized version, uses Tantric techniques to help enhance, heal or change relationships, offering much the same approach and same kind of help that is offered by the thousands of self-help programs and books available, with the added element of the sexual aspects. This is what most people in the West know about and what they mean when they talk about Tantra, and what most choose to pursue.
  

• TRADITIONAL TANTRA, based on ancient principles, handed down primarily in oral tradition from teacher to student for thousands of years, has many branches, all proceeding from Tantra as a spiritual practice and way of life. It is a philosophy, a way of approaching living. There are branches that maintain celibacy, just as there are branches that include sexual practice.

Many teachers combine these two fundamental approaches, weighing in more on one end of the spectrum or the other. You need to decide what your personal path is and follow it. There is nothing wrong with trying a number of different teachers –in fact it’s a good idea– until you find the one that “clicks” for you.

After more than thirty years of pursuing Tantra, I’ve learned a few KEY factors to examine when you’re looking for a Tantra workshop or course to try.

• First and foremost, MEET the teacher before signing up for a weekend workshop. If a short (1-3 hours) event, titled something like “Introduction to. . .” or “A Taste of . . .” is offered, take it. Your monetary loss will be minimal if s/he does not offer what you want to learn. If there isn’t a brief introduction offered, arrange an appointment of about 20 minutes with the teacher. Be willing to pay a fee if necessary. It’s worth it.

Your objective is to determine whether you trust this person, whether you feel s/he can help you relax and experiment in a roomful of people, and whether you feel that the person has a real knowledge of the subject or is mainly blowing smoke. Unfortunately, at least half of the Tantra “experts” out there are woefully unqualified.

• Second, CHECK OUT the teacher’s claims about qualifications If their own teacher or organization is cited, contact them and verify your prospective teacher’s claims. If no credentials or instructors are cited, ask for the names of students who are willing to talk to you about their experiences. Do a web search on Dogpile (searches many engines at one time), and see what you can find about the teacher and his/her organizations.

If you can’t find anything, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the teacher is unqualified, but it might mean that s/he is not very experienced. This is all right, if you know it beforehand and don’t mind. Often new teachers are more careful, more meticulous and more willing to work with you individually. I started with an apprentice teacher, and it was a good learning experience for both of us.

• Third, AVOID inflexible teachers and programs. By this I mean, do not sign up for a rigid, stepped program that requires you to take courses in a defined sequence and denies you the opportunity to change the order, omit a topic, take a topic twice or otherwise digress from a pre-set series.

If you find a teacher or organization that is completely inflexible, ten to one they are more interested in collecting your money than in giving you appropriate instruction. A good Tantra teacher (actually, a good teacher of anything) assesses a student’s work and progress and gives the student appropriate challenges and instruction as the student learns. A good teacher can do this as well in a course with many students as in a course with two students. A teacher who offers a one-size-fits-all course and ignores individual students’ needs is either lazy or unqualified or both.

• Fourth, ASK QUESTIONS about the workshop. How many couples will participate? What material will be covered? Will we get individual attention? Will issues possibly come up? Is there someone there to handle emergencies?

In other words, find out if you will be comfortable in the environment of the workshop. In my experience, a workshop with more than ten couples is too big; but the fact is that many introductory or basic skills workshops have as many as 40 couples. What you need to think about is how inhibiting it will be for you to be intimate in a room full of people. Granted, each couple will be self-contained and self-absorbed; but Tantric practice, even in the beginning, can reveal things, to others as well as to you, that you may not recognize before you begin. So don’t waste your money by putting yourself in a situation where you can’t learn because you’re not comfortable.

• Fifth, YOU BEGIN WHERE YOU ARE in Tantra. If you are in therapy, if you have body issues, if you were abused as a child, if you overuse or misuse drugs (including tobacco and alcohol), if your marriage is in trouble— any of these can affect what happens in Tantra practice and be magnified or altered by it. If the Tantra teacher does not ask about these things when you apply to take the workshop, BEWARE.

A responsible teacher will want to know about any of these factors in your life. If you have problems, they go right with you to a Tantra workshop. If you’re “in a good space,” it is enhanced at a Tantra workshop. I’ve seen quite a few awakenings, both positive and negative, during Tantra practice. The workshop teacher ought to be able to address anything that happens.

• PREPARE for a Tantra course. You’re not going on a holiday. You’re going to a place, both physical and emotional, where you can relax and learn. How much you learn is directly related to your ability to be open, objective and honest with yourself about whatever you feel, think and experience in the workshop.

Do some reading in advance. Take an extra day off from work the day before your workshop starts and take the time to relax, unwind, do extra meditation or reading, connect with your partner and generally drop the stresses that occupy us all most of the time. Be ready to relax into Tantric practice.

• Finally, RELAX, BE RECEPTIVE AND ENJOY THE WORKSHOP.

David and the Phoenix – Great Summer Read for Pre-teens

©RKSilipo. All rights reserved.

At age ten I read a book about a beautiful, multi-coloured, giant bird and a boy named David. They talked together a lot, and they went on adventures. That story stayed with me for fifty years.

So I decided to try to find the book, just to have it in my library and maybe re-read it someday. Thinking it would be out of print, I started searching the internet book sellers (excluding Amazon*) for it.

To my delight, I discovered that

www.purplehousepress.com

is in the business of finding and publishing modern classic children’s books, from picture books for the very young to books like David and the Phoenix, by Edward Ormondroyd, for older children.

So I bought the book, and I sat down to read it again. I enjoyed it as much now as I did all those years ago. What a treat to read a well-written, gripping narrative that doesn’t talk down to children and gives them challenging ideas to ponder while telling a cracking good story.

David’s adventures with Phoenix are exciting, fairy tale journeys, with the boy riding the back of the huge gorgeous bird. They meet Gryffons (dangerous), a Sea Monster (who guards a pirate treasure), and Fauns (fun), among other creatures, all known well by Phoenix, who calls on them to help him with David’s education.

Resourceful and persistent, David uses all his instincts and abilities to visit Phoenix every day and to help Phoenix escape the over-zealous scientist who wants to capture him or kill him for a trophy. This pursuer adds plenty of threat and conflict to the story to keep the kids reading.

This book is about friendship, trust and loyalty, and, interestingly, about self-reliance along with these qualities. It shows two very unlike characters working and playing together, facing challenges and solving problems by give-and-take and dogged determination.

In the end, the story is about giving up one’s own selfish desires for the good of a friend. What better lesson to learn over the summer vacation?

*The Humane Society of the United States reported that Amazon sells dog fighting magazines on it site and has denied all requests to stop selling them. I refuse to buy anything from a company that promotes cruelty to animals.

“Tantric Sexuality” – A Stunning DVD Course (Beginning Tantra)

©Ramona K Silipo. All rights reserved.

Over the weekend my husband and I

watched an excellent DVD beginner’s

course in Tantra. This is the first I’ve

seen (and I’ve watched many) that I

can recommend without major

reservations or qualifying statements.

The Beginner’s Guide to Tantric

Sexuality, written by and featuring

Leora Lightwoman and Roger Lichy, is a

good beginning for many reasons.

• The DVD is organized in six separate lessons which you can do in your own time, at your own pace.
• If you follow the instructions closely, you will have developed your own Tantric ritual to create your sacred space and to begin and end each practice.
• The exercises show you basic Tantric principles, and you learn by doing them. The focus is on doing and experiencing rather than theorizing or intellectualizing.
• The pacing of the lessons is good, giving plenty of time for you to try each element before moving on to another one.
• The design, direction and print quality are all excellent (unlike many Tantra DVDs and tapes I’ve seen which are amaeturish and seem to be shot by someone’s granddad with shaky hands). This is a beautiful film to watch.
  

The DVD is published in The Mind Body Soul series at www.newworldmusic.com

You can find out more about Leora Lightwoman on her web site, www.diamondlighttantra.com

On Christianity, on Mysticism – A Few Thoughts

©2008, Ramona K Silipo. All rights reserved.

A discussion about Christianity (whether or not, I mean) has been going on in Quaker circles here in England for years. In the last revision of Faith and Practice (the book of  queries and testimonies),  almost all references to Christianity were removed. When I first went to Strawberry Creek meeting, the meeting was described as Christ-centered rather than Christian.

Friends accept anyone into meeting for worship, and woe betide the meeting that offends the one single Bah’ai who might wander in one day. The issue is serious, that is, that Friends in general do not believe there is one exclusive path to God, and so do not judge other religions. But it is carried to silly extremes lately. (I think the fundamentalists and evangelicals have a lot to answer for. People shy away from saying  Christian because of all the negative and repressive connotations connected with the fringe elements.)

My definition of Christian is pretty simple: A Christian is someone who sees Jesus Christ as a teacher or leader, possibly God– someone whose life is an example to follow. Redemption, sin and all the rules are not the key elements. It’s wanting to be Christ-like that is the transformative thinking. If you follow Jesus’s example, you’re a Christian in my book. You may be a trying Christian, but at least you’re trying.

That’s part 1. Part 2 is, I love all the Jesus stories. They are whacking good yarns. Raising people from the dead, walking on water, making wine from water, accepting people as they are (including tax collectors and whores, among other societal outcasts) — all of those are great stories,  are every bit as good as anything the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen or C.S. Lewis came up with. Plus, in my view, it doesn’t matter whether he was “truly the Son of God” or not. If we do nothing more than follow his example we’re making an effort. As it happens, I do believe in his divinity. Whether he was more divine than Krishna or Buddha is another question, and, again, I don’t think it matters.

Oddly enough, the Christian mystics I know about are the Catholic ones, especially Theresa of Avila, who apparently had orgasmic experiences of Jesus (although we won’t find THAT word in any of the stories of her). I’ve always been fascinated by the descriptions of Christian mystical experiences, because they so often sound like sex as described in mildly pornographic novels. Is it all in their heads? Is it really a physical manifestation of the Holy Spriit entering their bodies? Is it delusions– and if delusions, from fasting or lack of sleep or other explainable reasons? Is it the Catholic Church’s so obvious masochism? What?

More seriously, mystical experiences are by definition unique and personal. No two people experience God in the same way. We are all imperfect humans, and we bring to any experience of God all the intellectual and emotional baggage we carry, no matter how genuine our intentions. Being open to being taken over by God is a pretty big order. Quaker meeting started the process for me; Tantra moved it forward very, very fast. Being able to surrender completely, even if only for a few seconds at a time, is an incredible grace. And the more you can do it, the more exciting and wondrous it becomes.

My favourite Jesus movie is Martin Scorcese’s The Last Temptation of Christ. Willem Dafoe plays Jesus as a real man, with doubts and needs and secrets, not as a perfect godlike creature. I mean, his Jesus  obviously likes women (which none of the other Jesus actors seemed to portray). And the relationship between Judas, played by Harvey Keitel, and Jesus is close and loving (and interpreted by some hopefuls as homosexual, but I don’t see it). The apostles are very real too, bickering among themselves, all trying to impress Jesus. To me, showing these “holy” people as absolutely human, with all the fears and needs we all have, makes them MORE holy, not less. They were able to overcome those very human failings and follow this guy for three years. That’s a big sacrifice if you were making money, sleeping with women and living a life before he turned up.

For me, that is the point: the mystical takes you out of the physical world and into the inexplicable, but even more real, world of pure spirit. Even if we only have it for a few seconds, or once or twice in a lifetime, what a gift! That some of us manage to have these experiences at length or repeatedly, then actually to communicate them in human language, and to have people hear and understand and follow— well, that’s a great grace.

Enough. I’m nattering on and on. I’ve been thinking about this for a couple of days, and it’s just spilling out.

Weaving the Mundane with the Spiritual

©2008, Ramona K Silipo. All rights reserved.

It’s interesting. I’ve wanted all these years to erase the line between spiritual life and everyday life, and I’ve just realized that choosing these paint colours is an example of what I’ve been trying to do.

Seems pretty mundane, deciding what colour to paint a room. But it’s not just a matter of decoration. Colour is very, very powerful. Our responses to colour are not simple. We respond psychologically, emotionally and physically. For instance, a measurable weakening of muscles happens when people walk into a room painted certain shades of pink. But on the emotional level, pink, even cool hues of pink, usually makes people feel warm, relaxed and receptive. That’s why it’s considered a romantic colour.

Looking at the colours at different times of day, considering the times of day we spend the most time in each room, considering the emotional and psychological responses and THEN considering the spiritual connotations — i.e. a green aura indicates healing power and a violet aura indicates spiritual devotion, etc. — well, it’s subtle and complex. I’ve almost always used grey walls as a neutral canvas and put all the colour into the furnishings, and people’s responses have always been that my house is peaceful. Well, I want the peaceful sense, yes, but I want colours now that also reflect the joy my husband and I have together and the spiritual energy we want to share.

Forgiveness – A Skill That Can Be Learned

©2008 Ramona K. Silipo. All rights reserved.

FORGIVE FOR GOOD, by Fred Luskin, subtitled, ‘A Proven Prescription for Health and Happiness,’ is a striking combination research report, case study and handbook. The material is groundbreaking, fascinating and instantly accessible.

In the courses he teaches, Fred Luskin, Ph.D., Director of the Stanford University Forgiveness Project, is absolutely authoritative and professional, without for a moment being dry and academic. His book breathes the same directness and expertise, written in a crisp, homely, very personal style. When the book was published, Dr. Luskin told me that, after he first submitted the manuscript, an editor handed it back to him with voluminous changes, putting everything into ‘proper’ English, taking the life out of it. Fortunately for the reader, he stood his ground and insisted that his own voice remain.

The ease of reading is crucial, because the material can be difficult. Most of us grew up hearing ‘forgive and forget,’ which in our minds connected the act of forgiveness with allowing ourselves to be hurt again and again. To forgive someone, we gathered, meant to ‘overcome’ the hurt, to ‘forget’ and be reconciled to the person who hurt us.

But Dr. Luskin’s work leads us in a different direction. Forgiveness is not condoning unkindness, or forgetting pain, not excusing bad behaviour, denying or minimizing your hurt. Shame, guilt, redemption, reconciliation— those things we learned about in Sunday school, are not necessarily connected with forgiveness. In fact, holding on to those ideas can actually prevent us from moving into a healthier state of mind and body.

His research and practice as a psychologist show that forgiveness is for the forgiver, not the offender. It is, essentially, a decision not to let past pain continue to hurt in your present and future life. It is taking back your personal power, taking responsibility for your emotions. Most important, forgiveness is about healing yourself and not about the people who hurt you. What’s more, and most promising, Luskin’s research shows that forgiveness is skill, one that can be learned just like tying your shoes or doing sums.

The book, throughout, is sprinkled with real life examples drawn from Luskin’s active counselling practice and his own life. His story of how he ‘got into’ studying and teaching forgiveness is at once a self-revealing recount of deep hurt, and an effective lesson in learning how to move past the pain and stop giving it room in one’s life.

Part One of Forgive for Good sets out the elements of grievance, blame and our tendency to take things personally that were never meant that way. The fine art of nursing a grudge is examined, as are the physical, emotional and psychological implications of doing so.

Moving to Part Two, the elements of forgiveness are presented, along with the medical evidence and a dramatic example of the effectiveness of deciding to forgive. In chapter seven, ‘The Science of Forgiveness,’ Luskin distills key research from a number of scientific studies which show that forgiveness improves physical as well as emotional and mental health. Then he gets specific and, in addition to detailing his earlier research, tells us about his work, aptly named HOPE, with mothers from Northern Ireland who lost sons, and a second programme for both men and women who lost family members in ‘the troubles.’

The positive results of the Northern Ireland programmes were deeply gratifying, and, Luskin admits, surprising even to him. He was not confident that his methods could work with people so deeply wounded. But, he concludes, ‘I marvel at the implications of these results. They demonstrate the incredible power of human beings to heal from even the most blatant of horrors. They reinforce my belief that people can learn to forgive.’

Part Three of Forgive for Good is a clear, practicable handbook on the process of forgiveness developed by Dr. Luskin. He is sublimely articulate and complete; the exposition of the material is logical, specific and practical. By working the exercises and techniques in the book, the reader can virtually complete the course Dr. Luskin teaches.

To cite one example, PERT (don’t be misled by the cute acronyms; this is serious work)– Positive Emotion Refocusing Technique. Through it, he says, ‘We gain tremendous confidence when we are suddenly faced with a painful situation or memory and are able to sustain our positive focus. Practising PERT helps us stay calm so we can make good decisions.’ Then Luskin gives detailed, simple instructions for the technique, which is essentially a relaxation and refocusing process that can be learned in less than half an hour.

The final chapter summarizes the process with ‘Nine Steps to Forgiveness.’ The first step is to know what happened, how you feel about it and be able to articulate it.’ Other steps include making a clear decision to do what you need to do to feel better; to give up expecting things from people that they do not choose to give you; and to understand your goal.

Luskin says, ‘What you are after is peace. Forgiveness can be defined as the peace and understanding that come from blaming less that which has hurt you [and] taking the experience less personally.’

Ironically, the final manuscript was ready for publication ten days after the September eleventh debacle in 2001. Luskin’s ‘Note to the Reader’ at the back of the book is alone worth the price of a copy. In part:

To help make sense of the relative importance of forgiveness at this time, think about the balance of a scale. . . On one end, there is vengeance and on the other forgiveness. At first the forgiveness end is up in the air, as it carries little weight against the strong desire for retaliation. . . Forgiveness, not forgetting, not condoning and not reconciling with offenders, is one of the powerful tools that we can use.