A memoir that offers intriguing insights into how one’s decisions affect one’s body and mind.
In her debut book, a holistic therapy practitioner, reflexologist, and artist relates her story of a near-death experience and its resulting insights.
In January 2015, author Guadalupe, disheartened by difficulties in her professional and personal lives, asked herself, “Is anything I do any good at all? Does it even make a difference?” Just a few minutes later, her car spun out of control on the road, and she experienced a transformative encounter with “The Light” (which she also calls “Source” or “God”). She says that she came to realize, among other things, that people’s lives on Earth are just a small part of their existence. She also says that she heard a voice ask her, “Do you want to live?”; after she responded affirmatively, she found herself back in her car, with no indication that an accident ever happened. She says that she then went on to experience a sense of heightened awareness over the next several months, even sensing life in inanimate objects. However, she became depressed when she tried to reconcile her experience with her profession, but by exchanging therapy sessions with a colleague, she was able to better integrate her encounter into the rest of her life. Her realization that all life is sentient, and that everyone chooses their own life, informed by beliefs, attitudes, and decisions, made her accept her connection with the Source. Overall, Guadalupe presents complex ideas in an easily comprehensible manner. Her account of her near-death experience is engaging, but its true significance in the narrative is in how it affected her professional practice. As a result, readers who are merely looking for a thrilling, supernatural account may be disappointed. The book also includes a clear discussion of polarity therapy, a holistic healing technique based on the idea of energy flow within the body. The final chapter, “Alignment and Transformation,” reads like a self-help book, and as such, it provides invaluable practical advice on changing one’s viewpoint in order to effect positive change in one’s life.
A memoir that offers intriguing insights into how one’s decisions affect one’s body and mind.Pub Date: June 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5043-5984-9
Page Count: 102
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Eve’s story is given the respect it deserves, though her case could use a stronger context.
Biblical gender roles are shaken up in the Garden of Eden.
The story of Adam and Eve is one of the most famous in the Bible. As it goes, the couple could have anything they wanted from the garden, with the exception of the forbidden fruit. But Eve was tempted by a serpent, and she gave the fruit to Adam. They ate it and were banished from the Garden of Eden forever. Much has been made about the role of Eve, the “woman” as temptress who led Adam to sin. However, Davidson delves into this biblical tale with a different tack. Through breaking down words, phrases and scripture in the Bible she sets to prove that Eve is actually the righteous character in this story and that Adam’s role needs revisiting. The author closely looks at names in scripture and what they mean. Adam is “a man or person of low degree, [a] common sort or hypocrite.” Eve is a life giver, or a person who declares or shows life. Parsing out Genesis 2:23, she notes that Adam chose to reject his name and proudly declare himself as “Man” instead, which, in this context has both negative and positive connotations, writes Davidson. Also, Adam chose a life without God, and, as a result, shows defiant qualities–he’s not the one corrupted, as many Bible stories focus on. The question remains: How much of Eve’s victimhood is factual and how much is myth told through a misogynistic culture? If the author could investigate this more deeply, she could make a real case for Eve’s role. However, though Davidson’s intentions are good, the book is often repetitive and could use more cited sources. Referencing texts other than the Bible might flesh out this tale too. But the spirit behind the book is powerful and reminds readers that famous biblical stories often need to be re-examined.
Eve’s story is given the respect it deserves, though her case could use a stronger context.Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4392-2318-5
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Well-crafted and thought-provoking.
Intriguing examination of the life-and-death difference between morality and ethics.
Gustafson contends that readers will be used to thinking of the terms “morality” and “ethics” as largely interchangeable. At the very least, most see both terms in a positive light. The author argues, however, that morality has been a misused and deadly social construct throughout the ages. “Morality and ethics differ,” says the author, “because morality supports civilization and ethics supports life.” Morality, according to Gustafson, is a civilization’s way of determining good and evil. Since morality changes from one civilization to another (and differs within civilizations), it is subject to abuse. Morality, he explains further, supports the “dominator system,” whereby everyone and everything is rated and valued according to a civilization’s arbitrary sense of good and bad. Hence “morality,” as the differentiation between good and evil, has been used throughout the centuries to condone everything from slavery, to racism in America, to the Nazi campaign against the Jews. Quite the contrary, writes Gustafson–ethics supports not a particular civilization, but life itself. Mercy and humility are examples of ethical behavior and thinking, which seek to serve those marginalized by society. The author points toward Native-American cultures as examples of ethical ones, in that they served the community as a whole as well as the natural world. Moreover, he holds up Jesus Christ as a foremost exemplar of ethics–“Jesus was not moral. He was ethical...because he rejected morality’s death-dealing function and supported life instead.” Overall, the book is well-written and pulls in a wide array of authors and thinkers. Gustafson’s work is not meant to be a treatise countering every argument, but instead introduces the concept of this morality-ethics dichotomy. In the end the author calls upon readers to be aware of the dominator system they live in, and how morality is used to support it, not life.
Well-crafted and thought-provoking.Pub Date: July 31, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-7414-5404-1
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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