And for my Good Readers, here’s the new reviews and articles for this month. The ARJ2 ones are new additions to the top of A Reader’s Journal, Volume 2, Chronological List, and the ART ones to A Reader’s Treasury.
1.) ARJ2:
Anastasia — Book 1 of The Ringing Cedars Series by Vladmir Megré
When you read a truly innovative work, you find that it is difficult to fit it into some pre-canned
category. A new work creates its own category. For example, was Isaac Newton's Principia
Mathematica a work of mathematics or philosophy? Neither or both. It laid the basis for an entire new
way of approaching our understanding of the physical world and laid the basis for our current
technological progress of over 400 years. There was no category for his landmark work because it
shaped new categories of thought that had not existed at the time of its publication. Anastasia is such
a work. We have no way of categorizing it that will make sense for many years. John Woodsworth,
the translator, discovered this right away.
[page vii] Some of my friends and colleagues have asked: "What kind of book are
you translating?" -- no doubt wondering whether they could look forward to
reading a novel, a documentary account, an inspirational exegesis on the meaning
of life, or even a volume of poetry.
But even after completing the translation of Anastasia, I still do not have
a definitive answer to give them. In fact, I am still asking myself the same
question. My initial response was a rather crude summary of a gut level
impression -- I would tell them: "Think of Star Trek meets the Bible."
It is all of those things mentioned above, and even more. What it is not is revealing. It is not
a book channeled through an individual like A Course in Miracles or a Seth Book. It is not a fictional
account of a spiritual adventure as The Celestine Prophecy. It is not a fairy tale. It is not an epic by
some apocryphal author. It is not a scholarly text.
This book is simply written by a Russian entrepreneur, Vladmir Megré, as a chronicle of the
time he spent with a young Russian woman, Anastasia, in a section of the Siberian taiga, a large
forested area which stretches across Russia. This woman lived alone in a taiga glade, with no house,
no cooking implements, used no fire, wore light clothes, and knew from personal experiences of
solutions to the major problems of the world, and had already begun implementing some of them.
This book is part of her plans for further implementation of her solutions to problems of disease,
cruelty, and other ills that afflict humankind today. What is the ringing cedar? When the author first
hears of it, an old man described it as an 500-year-old cedar about 130 feet high which was begging
to be cut down. It had begun ringing and if no one cut it down in 3 years, it would burn itself up and
be lost to humankind. It had been absorbing health-giving beams from the stars which it wanted to pass
onto human beings.
The explanation the old man gave for the healing power was that "God created the cedar to
store cosmic energy." (Page 6) Only bright rays of light can travel into the cosmic reaches, he said,
and they return to be collected by the old cedars for later release to human beings. The dark rays never
make it off the surface of the Earth.
Who can deny that humans seem to have as many malicious feelings as there are eruptions,
earthquakes, wars, and the like? As to whether the two are intimately related, one should withhold
judgment until one has read further of what the old man's grand-daughter was to reveal in the course
of this series of books, which stands at nine volumes, up until now. Vladimir met her on his next trip
to the taiga region and she introduced herself as Anastasia, and suggested he accompany her to the
heart of the taiga about 16 miles inland. They were to walk together the entire distance. At one point
Vladimir asked her how she could walk alone so far with no fear. She didn't answer him, but when
he attempted to draw her close to him, he suddenly lost consciousness, and awoke to find her bending
over him on the ground. All he remembered was an intense fear before he passed out. He got his
answer in process, in a demonstration of how she protected herself non-violently.
When they arrived at where Anastasia lived, she astounded him with her announcement.
Vladimir was incredulous when he looked around at what she called home.
[page 29] "Here we are at home!"
I looked around. A neat little glade, dotted with flowers amidst a host of
majestic cedars, but not a single structure to be seen. Not even a hut. In a word,
nothing! Not even a primitive lean-to! But Anastasia was beside herself with joy.
As though we had arrived at a most comfortable dwelling.
How she lives makes Thoreau's tiny room at Walden Pond seem like a yuppie pad in
comparison. She drinks the pure, living water from a small taiga lake, and squirrels bring her nuts to
eat in their jaws when she is hungry.
Her way of life is remarkable enough, but what she reveals about the "Seed as physician" in
Chapter Eleven should make everyone come alert. In the USA where so much of our food is grown
in areas completely disconnected from our homes, we rarely eat food whose seeds we have planted,
up until now. The dachniks in Russia are leading the world in this area by growing so much of the food
that they consume. I saw an estimate somewhere that over fifty percent of all vegetables consumed in
Russia comes from dachnik gardens.
Can one buy a sense of inner peace from the supermarket? Or produce which will cure diseases,
stave off aging process, correct unhealthful habits, or increase one's mental abilities? And yet from
reports of dachniks in Russia, they are finding all these things coming from the weekend garden work
and food they eat back in the city which they grew in their dachas' gardens. Anastasia puts the matter
plainly -- the plants will become your physician and pharmacist:
Imagine if you were alive in the 1930s when "Gone With The Wind" and "The Wizard of Oz"
were first written and you never bothered to read them. That is the way it is for all of our children
today, they only know of these great classics because of watching the films made from them in 1939.
Someday a film will be made of Anastasia's life and it will undoubtedly be as great a classic as these
two movies. Will you wait for the movie to learn about Anastasia and her tremendous spirituality and
suggestions for improving your life? Or will you be one of those who will be doubly graced by having
immediately read the books her life inspired? The choice is yours. Click below on the review to get
started in freedom and light.
Read the Review at:
http://www.doyletics.com/arj/anasta01.htm
2.) ARJ2:
The Ringing Cedars of Russia Book 2 of The Ringing Cedars Series by Vladmir Megré
This book contains what happened to Vladmir Megré after the events he portrayed in
Book 1. He recalls two things that Anastasia predicted:
[page 8] When I was in the taiga, Anastasia told me: "I shall make you a
writer. You will write a book, and many people will read it. It will have a
beneficial influence on the readers."
You may remember me writing in Book 1 what she said two years
earlier: "Artists will paint pictures, poets will write verse and they will
make a movie about me. You will see all this and think of me...."
All of these things and many more have become reality by the time Vladimir was writing
down these thoughts. He visited an exhibition of paintings by Alexandra Saenko dedicated to
Anastasia and Nature and he was amazed.
[page 9] From the many pictures Anastasia looked out at me with her
kindly eyes. And the scenes! I couldn't get over it — some of the pictures
showed scenes from this second book, which hadn't been published yet.
And there was this glowing sphere, sometimes appearing right next to
Anastasia. Later I learnt that the artist painted not with a brush but with
her fingertips. Most of the pictures had already been sold, but left hanging
for the duration of the exhibit, since more and more people were coming to
see them. The artist presented one of them to me as a gift, depicting
Anastasia's mother and father. I couldn't take my eyes off her mother's
face.
Offers started coming in from various film studios about making an
Anastasia movie. And this was now something I was already accepting as
a matter of course.
Plus he reported that there was already a Moscow Research center investigating
Anastasia phenomena. Its conclusions reported on page 9 are included in my review of Book
1. The evidence that Anastasia is real and affecting lives all over the world is mounting up and
even the author who experienced her directly is taken aback by how quickly this began to
happen, and happen even before the book itself became available. If one compares Anastasia
to Don Juan Mateus in Carlos Castaneda's books, one main difference is apparent. We heard
of Don Juan only in the books and never knew if he were a real person or not.
At one point Vladimir asked Anastasia, "Why did you rid me of my diseases?" She
explained that unless he changed his life style, they will come back. Vladimir was still upset that
she had rebuffed his business plan for her, so she explained how people might cure themselves
of their diseases without the undesirable side-effects which accompanies others healing them.
[page 25] "There are several main causes underlying the diseases of the
human flesh, namely: harmful feelings, emotions, an artificial dietary
regime — an unnatural meal schedule and food composition, the lack of
short-term and long-term goals, and a misapprehension of one's essence
and purpose in life. Positive emotions, a variety of plants and a reappraisal
of one's essence and purpose in life — all these are capable not only of
counteracting diseases but also of significantly enhancing one's physical
and mental or emotional state.
"As far as bringing back — under the conditions of your world
Man's lost connection with plants, I have already told you about that. After
Man has established a direct personal contact with these plants, it is much
easier to make sense of everything else.
"The Ray of Love, too, is capable of curing many diseases of one's
fellow-Man and even prolonging his life by creating around him a Space of
Love.
"But Man himself, once he has managed to arouse positive emotions
in himself, can use them to extinguish pain and cure the diseases of the flesh
-- even the effects of poison."
Vladimir wanted to know how "one can think good thoughts if one has a toothache or
a stomachache." Anastasia mentions Guardian Angels as a solution, recalling what she said in
Book 1 that people who fill their minds constantly with things and thoughts are beyond the help
of even their own Guardian Angels. Vladimir asks her, "How does one get enough pure and
clear moments to arouse positive healing emotions?" (Page 26) Her answer is clear and
practical: treat others with genuine Love and in return, you'll receive exactly that.
"Material things won't bring you love." That's something we've all heard over the years.
Anastasia tells that to Vladimir in this way:
[page 29] "Genuine Love, Vladimir, could not possibly be under the control
of artificially created objects. Even if you owned all the objects in the
world, you would not be able, just with their help, to gain access to the true
Love of even one woman."
He told her that his ship had done exactly that, it brought him the love of a woman. So
she asked for details about what happened after he lured her aboard his large, luxurious ship.
But why did Vladimir get drunk and end up sleeping alone in the cramped crew's quarters
below deck? The truth was too painful for him to recall, so Anastasia told him what had
happened. This is a story played out over and over again in soap operas and movies. It is a ploy
still used today because men will go for the short term gain and remain mostly ignorant of the
long-term consequences of using material goods (cars, boats, etc) to attract women to
themselves, up until now.
[page 30] "The moment came when you noticed a strange expression on the
face of that beloved young woman of yours — a preoccupied smile.
Intuitively, even subconsciously, you realized that she, your beloved, was
thinking how happy she would be if only it were her own beloved that was
sitting across from her in this bar, instead of Megré. Your precious girl was
dreaming of someone else, someone she really liked. She fantasized that it
was he, and not you, who was master of the ship. You were at the mercy of
inert matter, to which you had tied your living feelings and aspirations, and
were choking them to death."
Later Anastasia explains how the unrequited love of Vladimir's crippled cherry tree
reached her and brought her to Vladmir's ship and to him. The cherry tree he had tenderly
planted, whose branches he kissed, and whose cherry he ate, reached out to return his love and
found Anastasia. Here was Vladimir's bootstrap into discovering Anastasia, he performed an
act of love to a living cherry tree, something Anastasia herself does in her daily life and it
resonated with her and led her to find him on his ship.
[page 35] "You mean to say," I queried, "that your relationship to me arose
out of your desire to help the tree?"
"My relationship to you, Vladimir, is simply that: my relationship.
It is difficult to say who was helping whom here — the cherry tree me or
I the tree. Everything in the Universe is interrelated. To perceive what is
really going on in the Universe one need only look into one's self. But now,
by your leave, I am giving an embodiment to this, to what the cherry tree
desired. May I give you a kiss from the tree?"
She kissed him. It was a tangible expression of the cherry tree's love for him returned
by the Universe in the form of Anastasia. The full story of the cherry tree is itself worth the
price of this book.
Vladimir relates a long conversation he had with Anastasia's grandfather who visited
him in Moscow. They covered many subjects in Chapter 26 and succeeding chapters, including
the idea of a "Space of Love" which will be the title of the next book in the Ringing Cedars
Series. Grandfather gave more details on the glade in which Anastasia lives and reading it made
me think of the Space of Love into which my parents brought and raised me. Grandfather
explained to Vladimir why he and his father walked away and left Anastasia alone as an infant
in the glade after burying her parents.
[page 148] "To Anastasia the little glade is literally a mother's womb. The
glade is her living Motherland. Powerful and kind. And inextricably tied
by a natural, living thread to the whole Universe. To the whole creation of
the Grand Creator.
"The little glade is her living Motherland. It came to her mother and
her father. And from the One and Only, the Original Father. We could
never be a substitute for it. That is why, after burying her parents, we
walked away."
What was your Space of Love, dear Reader? Ponder that a while as you click on the link
below and read the entire review. Recall in detail where you were born and spent the first seven
or so years of your life. Did you make contact with the Earth during that time?
Perhaps by reading Anastasia you will grow to understand and appreciate the space of
love you grew up in, and then you will re-create that space of love for your children by allowing
them to come into contact with the Earth free of fears or worries so that growing up will infuse
them with deep connections to Nature and to Love.
Read the Review at:
http://www.doyletics.com/arj/ringin02.htm
3.) ARJ2:
My Editor by M. B. Goffstein
How can I create a blurb of a 26-page book which averages 21 words a page? The blurb
on the back of the hardcover book is almost as long as the book itself:
[Rear Book Cover] My Editor will fascinate anyone who has ever
wondered what really goes on between a writer and an editor. It re-creates
the sometimes frustrating, sometimes rewarding dialogue that develops
during the crucial stages of a book's evolution. And with unfailing humor,
it offers the suggestion that behind every great writer there is a pretty
good editor.
Goffstein writes and illustrates children's books, and this book is written like a
children's book, but about an adult subject. Using single geometric figures, such as a circle for
herself, a triangle for her editor, and a rectangle for the editor's desk, she illustrates each page.
Then she pens a short poem for each page.
[page 2] I sit across
from his desk,
torn with love
I can't express,
The person sitting in front of the editor is not the writer, but someone who represents
the writer. Someone all dressed up, prim, proper, and alert — not the writer who while
working is usually disheveled in comfortable clothes wearing slippers, with the phone off the
hook, deep in thought. Goffstein illustrates her neat self on the last page. We see a circle, her
circle, filled with plaid markings and this descriptive text:
[page 26] freshly showered,
in a plaid shirt,
trying to act
intelligent.
This is why I chose for my photo of the author on the masthead of the review, a circle
filled with plaid. Go ahead and read the entire review, it's only a few more circles and squares, and a divided triangle, among other things.
Read the Review at:
http://www.doyletics.com/arj/myeditor.htm