An earnest offering from a spiritual journeyman hampered by vagueness and repetition.
A spiritual guide that aims to set readers on the path to enlightenment.
Artist and debut author Trink offers assistance to those who wish to reach their “fullest potential from the position of heart-centered inner strength.” Drawing on Buddhist principles and detailing his personal experiences, the author maps out a route for a journey to potential enlightenment. Over the course of 21 chapters, he outlines each of the concepts and offers spiritual exercises that he asserts are essential for the understanding of the “divine self”; each ends with a “Reflection” that serves as a guidepost and daily reminder to be read twice per day, ideally in the morning and before going to bed. For example, the chapter on “Trust” reminds readers that “releasing your mind to the embrace of trust, is allowing Spirit to flow easily and effortlessly into every cell of your body.” Other concepts that Trink defines as being essential to the understanding of the divine self range from “Facing Fear/Trusting Life” and “Compassion” to “The Ego-mind” (“the part of our mind that weaves stories of duality and identifies itself with…illusions”) and “Epigenetics” (“the science that traces the vibrational signals from outside the cell membrane…that influences the expression of our DNA”). Readers may find Trink’s arguments repetitive (the “winds of change” metaphor loses its impact after a while) as well as inexact, as when he states, without evidence, that “science has confirmed that we live in a holographic universe.” However, Trink also includes some heartfelt accounts of personal experiences that led him to become a spiritual guide, including the loss of a spouse and a life-threatening illness, which led him to pursue a life guided by “self-love, wisdom, and divine knowledge.”
An earnest offering from a spiritual journeyman hampered by vagueness and repetition.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-98-225208-3
Page Count: 172
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
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