AUTHENTIC HAPPINESS by Martin Seligman
· · · · · · · · · · ·

AUTHENTIC HAPPINESS by Martin Seligman

Posted on:

Recently a wonderful opportunity came my way: I was able to tell a well-respected, practicing psychologist my objections to psychotherapy as it is currently practiced, and he listened carefully, and he responded with both clarity and respect. I have a chance to rethink my position with new insight.
Fine critical analysis is not always a gift. For those who follow Vedic astrology, I have Mars in Virgo rising. Astrology is descriptive, not causative. In my case it rather beautifully describes my forward movement (Mars) with critical discernment (Virgo) and how it pisses off people (energetic, non-diplomatic Mars, in the first house).
And to those who scoff at astrology: “I use astrology for the same reason I use the multiplication table, because it works.” This is a quote from Grant Lewi (1902-1951), an English professor at Dartmouth.
Astrology is a multi-faceted art and my chart yields a further description. Jupiter the great benefic sits in the 7th house, facing my rising sign. In Vedic astrology, Jupiter is in Pisces, its own sign, which creates a Hamsa Yoga, the swan yoga, for good luck and evolutionary progress. Jupiter aspects that rasty Mars of mine. It is surprising how often something good comes out of my forward movement.
In this case, the gift was twofold: one, the psychologist received and validated my careful observations (ever notice how few therapists can listen to anyone, or hear criticism?) and two, this thoughtful man responded with ideas that hadn’t occurred to me. His willingness to engage me intellectually gave me a new insights, new awareness. I enjoy that. I am grateful.
My beautiful step-daughter at Johns Hopkins is aware of my on-going debate about psychotherapy, and told me about a class she took at Hopkins called “Positive Psychology.” She sent her professor’s book to her dad for his birthday. Naturally, I pounced on the book.
And the book is fascinating. Dr. Martin Seligman makes the point that most current psychology is negative psychology: the study of despair, depression, organic illness, failure, self-sabotage, e.g., “discovering deficits and repairing damage.” What about the study of positive mental and emotional traits, like peace, joy, hope, faith, and optimism? Don’t we all want more of those in our lives? But those don’t get funded by grants so they tend not to be studied.
In my opinion, ‘positive psychology’ has largely been left in the hands of New Age self-help gurus and “The Secret” purveyors, which is mixed. Some of those people are selling snake oil, some of them are on to something. (No, there is no irony in a follower of astrology stating this truth.)
Seligman points out, rightly, I think, that people stand to benefit from studying “positive institutions that promote strengths and virtues,” that lead to “lasting fulfillment: meaning and purpose.”
Seligman admits to being agnostic and I am always surprised at the lengths to which ethical humanists go to avoid acknowledging a divine presence. What is the big deal about accepting the infinite field of all-consciousness in which we live and have our beings? Still, his well-written book builds toward an explanation of how to achieve meaning and purpose, and true happiness, in life. I recommend the book. It’s good reading. It’s a rich feast for thought.
IMMORTAL en francais, and Two great new blog posts
· · · · · · ·

IMMORTAL en francais, and Two great new blog posts

Posted on:

IMMORTAL en francais

IMMORTAL en francais, and Two great new blog posts

Voila, IMMORTEL

What an awesome cover! I love it. It reminds me of 1940’s pulp sci-fi, a genre I sorely miss. Reminds me of the juicy fun covers of Edgar Rice Burroughs books, when I used to save up money from my allowance and my paper route to buy books. To the French illustrator: my compliments!

Certainly, my French translator did an amazing and meticulous job of translation. He kept emailing me with questions until he really grokked everything I was trying to say. So, for all you French speakers: Buy this book!

The journey of this novel has been an extraordinary gift. The most interesting people respond to the book. Sometimes they contact me, sometimes they don’t.

Laura Faeth, herself the noted author of the visionary memoir I Found All the Parts: Healing the Soul through Rock ‘n’ Roll, recently emailed to tell me that she’d enjoyed the book. Her comments were thoughtful and she asked if she could send questions for me to answer for her blog, Rock ‘n’ Reincarnation. “Yes, please!” I replied.

Laura’s questions were intriguing, as expected from a close reader with a unique and self-aware perspective. Her deep sense of the soul of mysticism informs her writing. She posted my replies… So take a look at Rock ‘n’ Reincarnation.

Then sometimes something about Immortal pops up on the internet, unexpected and delightful. I set up google alerts to notify me, and something fun came through: a great review on The Bookworm’s Library. A reader named Lisa posted a review: “This is a great, unexpected treasure of a story that I came across, while I was looking for something else in the library recently…. This book offers a tremendous historical fiction of a fascinating time in history….This story is an amazing read… We are challenged to find that the most important thing in this life is the true nature of the self… I loved this book, this one is a great read!”

Lisa wrote several paragraphs. Like Laura, Lisa read passionately and thought carefully. It’s a blessing and a joy to have such readers.

So, thank you to Laura and to Lisa, and take a peek at the blogs…

Rock ‘n’ Reincarnation and also Sound of your Soul by Laura Faeth

The Bookworm’s Library which seems to be by AbbyW, Lisa, and Nikki.
C. Stephen Baldwin’s SHADOWS OVER SUNDIALS
· · · ·

C. Stephen Baldwin’s SHADOWS OVER SUNDIALS

Posted on:

C. Stephen Baldwin’s SHADOWS OVER SUNDIALS

I love New York. People here are fascinating. I start a discussion with someone and he or she turns out to have a dazzling, heart-palpitating personal story of love and loss, victory and humiliation, exalted communion and dark nights of the soul. Is there no one in this glorious, feral, bursting city who is ordinary?

Many of my neighbors in my apartment building are like this: possessed of extraordinary life histories. A decade ago in Steamboat Springs, my former husband and I and our two children got trapped on the top of a mountain in a white out. We made it into the restaurant near the peak and sat at a table with hot cocoa. Our downstairs neighbor Stephen Baldwin skiied in, looking for the same warm respite. He’d been the one to recommend Steamboat to us, and he was there with some of his teenage kids and his wife.

The three of us–Stephen, my former husband, and I–fell to yakking, sharing anecdotes to pass the time. At one point I looked across the table and asked, “What is it you do at the United Nations, Stephen? I don’t think you ever told us.”

Stephen grinned and started to talk. His dad was JFK’s ambassador to Malaysia. Stephen himself, as a boy, was lost in the jungles of Peru and tattooed by head-hunters in Borneo; as a young man, he wrestled a Bengal tiger and ran with the bulls; as an adult, he set up an underground railroad for Bengali revolutionary leaders to escape a brutal Pakistani regime…. What unfolded was the tale of a brilliant and peripatetic soul who held a vision of the world as a community, and who was committed to world service. My former husband and I were spellbound. It wasn’t just the adventures, it was also the keen and wondering sense of curiosity, of observation, with which Stephen so deeply engaged his life.

“There’s a book here, Stephen,” I said finally. And he took me at my word, and wrote the book. SHADOWS OVER SUNDIALS Dark and Light: Life in a Large Outside World has arrived. I recommend it to everyone.

see Stephen’s website at www.cstephenbaldwin.com

· · · ·

NEW REVIEW OF IMMORTAL, COMING IN JULY TO RENAISSANCE MAGAZINE

Posted on:

NEW REVIEW OF IMMORTAL, COMING IN JULY TO RENAISSANCE MAGAZINE

In a recent National Public Radio spot on Dugald Steer’s Dragonology: The Complete Book of Dragons and other books in the Myth(ologies) series, an enthusiastic fourth-grade fan of those books remarked, “There’s sorta like a fiction way to learn real stuff.”  How true—and for adult readers wishing to plumb renaissance Italy while being thoroughly entertained, there is Immortal, Traci L. Slatton’s stunning debut novel set primarily in the majestic heart of Florence. Immortal sweeps across the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as it follows the tumultuous life of Luca Bastardo, a beautiful blond-haired orphan boy who is kidnapped from a wretched life on the streets and plunged into an even worse existence as a prostitute by a murderous brothel-owner who surely ranks as one of the most vile characters in literature.

   Blessed with unnaturally keen senses, Luca’s salvation is his ability to free his mind and soar to calming places while he is forced to “work.” As time passes, others age, but not Luca Bastardo, who at twenty-seven still looks about thirteen.  Inventive and lush in the manner of author Anne Rice, Immortal explores the dividing line between the real and unreal, following Luca’s journey across time as he struggles to unravel the mystery of his birth and his ageless beauty while facing a difficult choice: immortality or the chance to find his one true love.

   Along the way, Luca survives the Black Death and the Inquisition and becomes intimates with such giants of the Renaissance as artists Giotto di Bondone and Leonardo da Vinci—150 years apart—not to mention Savonarola and Sandro Botticelli. A mix of art, religion, alchemy, and historical intrigue, Immortal is original and beautifully written, a true gift to the senses and an uncommonly good read.

Alana White
 
Up Till Now: William Shatner’s biography
· ·

Up Till Now: William Shatner’s biography

Posted on:

Let me get it out of the way right away: I am a long time trekkie and I have loved Captain James T. Kirk from the first minute I saw him on STAR TREK, in 1969 when I was 6 years old.

That was a formative year for me. It was also the year I read my first “big book” and knew I wanted to write novels.
So I couldn’t resist buying Shatner’s autobiography when I saw it at Barnes & Noble, though I will, alas, resist his websites, which he plugs on every other page of this book.
Other than the used-car-salesman-like pressure to visit his websites and purchase assorted Shatnerbilia, UP TILL NOW is warm and charming. It’s the all-too-human story of a life intensely and purposefully lived. The voice is well done, careening between blustery self-congratulation, wry self-awareness, and honest revelation. William Shatner is a man who has loved and lost and suffered, and he talks about it with perspicacity and sadness. He’s also a man who has succeeded, and he recounts his achievements–and his near misses–with equal measures of braggadocio and irony. Well, maybe the braggadocio comes out ahead. He is an actor, after all; that species is not known for lacking narcissism. But this book has more substance than the usual vanity fare. The unifying theme is the intelligence with which he revisits his life Up Till Now.
I don’t hold the “Buy My Stuff” schtick against him because I am an artist married to an artist, and I never miss an opportunity to 1, tell someone how wonderful my novel is so they can run out and buy it, and 2, tell someone how wonderful my husband’s sculptures are, so they can run out and buy them, too. After all, I’m not just in the business of writing novels, I am in the business of selling them. My oldest daughter nearly dies of mortification every time, but here is one of my typical forays:
*************
Video Store Guy: Here’s your movies, enjoy them.
Me: Thanks. Hey, do you read?
Video Store Guy: Read? Uh…
Me: I mean, do you enjoy novels. I’m an author whose first novel came out a few months ago. Here’s a card for it: IMMORTAL. It’s a historical novel set in Renaissance Florence. The film rights just sold a few weeks ago.
Video Store Guy: Film rights? Really?
Me: Yes! It’s going to be a great movie. Check out the novel!
Outside the store.
My daughter: MOM! Could you BE any more embarassing??? Argh!!!!!
***********
So I don’t judge Shatner for his candor about wanting to make money.
And he namedrops in satisfying enough ways, and he has been a working actor for a very long time, so he includes a little bit of the social history of acting and the evolution of the medium of television and some perspective on the phenomenon of STAR TREK. I would have liked to see even more of that; whatever the largeness of his ego and the smallness of his hairline, William Shatner is a smart man, with shrewd observations.
I enjoyed his autobiography. It was entertaining and I would recommend it to anyone with interest.
And, FYI, Dear Reader: My husband Sabin Howard’s small sculptures, like the exquisite MAN or EROS, can be purchased for $5000 plus shipping. His heroic scale HERMES (a testament to Man’s power and intelligence) and APHRODITE (a paean to beauty, harmony and balance, the single best female figure in several hundred years) each cost $165,000. For those of you who might want to own a limited edition, museum quality bronze sculpture by an artist that the NY Times has compared to Rodin and Donatello. His works are grace beyond compare: check out www.sabinhoward.com and see for yourself.
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·

Welcome

Posted on:

Hello, Dear Readers:

This is the inaugural entry of my blog, In the mouth of the serpent. This blog will consist of my ramblings, rantings, observations, opinions, suggestions, and hopes for the future. My interests are passionate and diverse: books, pop and literary; art, especially of the Renaissance; spirituality and healing; politics; relationships; children and child-rearing; movies and TV shows and travel and yoga and any other topic that seizes my imagination. I hope this blog stimulates and intrigues you. Feel free to email me with questions and comments; if I’m intrigued, I’ll post your email and respond.
In Vedic astrology, I have entered a particular cycle of my life ruled by Rahu, the north node of the moon, the iconic head of the serpent. Rahu in general is considered malefic but in my horoscope, it’s unusually well placed by sign and house. So, for the next 17 years, I am standing in the serpent’s mouth: this is the view.
Very truly yours,
Traci L. Slatton
tracilslatton723@mac.com
Google