An original and visually stunning guide to the spiritual meanings of flowers.
A horticulturalist transforms her love of flowers into a system of symbols and imagery that seekers can use for spiritual support and inspiration.
In this manual, Adams recounts that she was researching a presentation for a horticultural conference when she first developed a deep interest in the wide variety of meanings ascribed to flowers. From the ancient Egyptians, who revered the lotus as a symbol of rebirth, to the 19th-century British, who used the meanings attributed to blossoms to facilitate subtle social communication, flowers have “spoken” to humans through their delicate beauty and riotous colors. After further research, the author discovered the captivating concept of using flowers and the meanings linked to them as a method of telling fortunes. Lacking one cohesive process among the wealth of information, Adams decided to fashion her own system for employing the meanings of various flower features as prognosticators of the future. She combined some aspects of tarot reading with the popular affirmations of “angel cards” to create a reading format in which a seeker selects three flowers and colors, representing the recent past, the present, and a “possible outcome.” The text that follows lists the flowers along with the meanings of their shapes, colors, and number of petals. Each entry also includes the flower’s meaning and message. The common dandelion’s circular shape, for example, is a symbol of the passage of time, and its five-petal pattern suggests that the seeker may be making an important life decision. The yellow color indicates a lover of mental challenges, and the choice of the resilient flower may mean an ability to rise above trials. Adams’ formulations provide a practical and appealing approach to connecting nature and spirituality, especially for those attracted to the Victorian language of flowers. The book is visually beautiful, offering vivid thumbnail photographs from various sources of each flower for the seeker to choose from. Individual flower pages are printed over a shaded image of the specimen, adding visual depth to the many meanings of each blossom. A small deck of cards, such as tarot or angel cards, would provide a more satisfyingly tangible way to select the flowers. But the lack of one does not diminish the pleasure of paging through the lush blooms and agreeing with Adams that “flowers are magical and inspire us to reach our potential.”
An original and visually stunning guide to the spiritual meanings of flowers. (resources)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-982253-73-8
Page Count: 100
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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